Welsh Baccalaureate Individual Project

WELSH BACCALAUREATE INDIVIDUAL PROJECT

Egyptology:

Two successful business people and their ten-year old child have just returned from their holiday in Egypt and ask you to guide them around your Egyptian museum. Unfortunately, they only have half an hour at their disposal. Which five objects would you choose to show them and why? What do these objects tell us about the ancient Egyptians and their beliefs? For this exercise, you can select Egyptian objects in your local museum, if they have any, or museums with online catalogues. These could include the British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Boston Museum of Fine arts, and many others. These online catalogues will include excellent images of the objects, which you can illustrate in your project. However, the descriptions are often fairly brief, so you will need to supplement your research by looking in various books.

Website: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/artsandhumanities/classics- ancient-history-and-egyptology/

Ancient History:

The first Roman emperor was Augustus, who, as the final victor in a series of great civil wars, became sole ruler of the empire in 30 BC. He carried forward a series of political reforms to create a new political system, the ‘Principate’ with himself, the emperor, as supreme ruler of Rome and its empire. Augustus’ reign was a long and successful one, lasting to his death in AD14. It provided a political formula and precedents for the emperors who succeeded him over the following centuries. Some of them, like Claudius and Vespasian, followed his example quite closely and were popular. Others, like Gaius Caligula and Nero, are remembered as notoriously ‘bad’ emperors. But what do we actually know about the Roman emperors? An interesting project would be to examine the range of evidence for Rome’s emperors, including ancient literary texts (by historians such as Tacitus and Cassius Dio and biographers such as Suetonius), inscriptions, coins, statues and monuments. Who wrote the ancient literary texts and why? What images of the emperors do they present, and are they likely to be distorted in any way? How have these texts affected modern depictions of Roman emperors in history books, fiction, film and TV? What do visual and material evidence such as statues, coins and monuments tell us about the images that particular emperors sought to present of themselves? All of the necessary evidence is widely available (the literary texts and inscriptions translated into English) on-line and in books.

Website: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/artsandhumanities/classics-ancient- history-and-egyptology/

Classical Civilisation

Until the World Wars in the last century, Classical scholars were mainly interested in the big themes and key figures of Greek and Roman myth. They predominantly explored the role of strong male heroes and their exploits, such as wars against either each other or against vicious monsters. Stories were explored as a struggle between good and evil.

Since the 1960s, however, scholars have been increasingly interested in less visible characters in ancient myth, such as women, slaves, ethnic minorities, and children. The exploration of these less visible groups of society and how they are portrayed in literature is redefining not only our view of Greek and Roman antiquity, but also our view of our own society. To create a more profound understanding of the ancient world, it is important to examine how these groups – both individually and in relation to each other – are represented in literature not only negatively (for example as being marginalized, ignored, or neglected) but also positively, by being idealized.

Website: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/artsandhumanities/classics-ancient- history-and-egyptology/