Final Exam

The final examination is intended to allow the student to demonstrate the ability to conduct independent work through the critical elaboration, drafting, and presentation (and, where required, the discussion) of a written dissertation, of approximately 30-50 pages in length. The dissertation shall concern a topic agreed upon with the supervising professor and consistent with the overall educational objectives of the degree programme. It shall normally consist in the analysis, commentary, and contextualisation—according to the methodologies proper to the relevant disciplinary field—of archaeological evidence, individual works or corpora of works, passages from literary or historiographical sources, or critical texts. Particular attention may be devoted to themes that connect the study of ancient societies and cultures with their transmission, reception, and reinterpretation in contemporary contexts.

Upon completion of the final examination, the student will be expected to:
apply, independently and with critical awareness, the disciplinary and cross-disciplinary knowledge acquired during the degree programme to the analysis of a specific topic pertaining to the fields of ancient civilizations and their cultural legacy in the modern world;
critically evaluate and historically contextualise different categories of sources (archaeological, textual, material, and visual) employed in the study of antiquity;
show his/her ability to master up-to-date bibliographic, archival, and digital research tools (including online resources) relevant to the investigation of ancient cultures and their reception;
situate the chosen topic within its appropriate historical, cultural, and social framework, highlighting its connections with broader issues in antiquity and with its significance for contemporary debates;
employ precise and effective linguistic and stylistic competences to present, in written form, complex concepts and reflections in accordance with the standards of scholarly communication in the humanities;
utilise the transversal competences and formal conventions necessary for the preparation of a scholarly dissertation (including footnotes, references, bibliographies, and citation practices).