The PhD School in ARCHAEOLOGY, with its articulation into 6 curricula relating to the different chronological or thematic fields of the discipline, represents the highest and most comprehensive level of post-graduate training and is the only doctorate totally dedicated to Archaeology in the national university system.
There are different goals depending on the different curricula:
- CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
The curriculum in Classical Archaeology was established in order to form and train to scientific research a number of graduates in the disciplines of archaeological areas and similar field. The main topic of this curriculum is the complex context of the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean societies, with a particular focus on the Greek and Roman worlds. The courses are organized so that we can focus the student's work on the methodology of theoretical and practical research, in particular the aims and methods of carrying out the research, the critical examination of the studied materials and achieved initial results. The launch and operation of a conscious critique of their production is considered an essential exercise of the courses, achieved by critical and organizational comparison with what has been published about the research of graduate students.
- ARCHAEOLOGY AND POST-CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES
The archaeology and post classic antiquities PhD, structured in seminaries, intends to train researchers towards themes that interest the disciplinary sector of Christian and Medieval Archaeology (L-ANT/08). The scientific and training objective is the preparation to the research on archaeological themes related to late antiquity and early Middle Ages with particular attention to the antiquities and institutions of Christianity, to the dynamics of urban and territorial transformations, to the productive activities of the artistic and handicraft field.
craftsmanship.
- ORIENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
The Oriental Curriculum pursues the attainment of an in-depth specialized knowledge in the field of study of the ancient pre-classical civilizations of the Near East, in the chronological arc that goes from the formation of urban civilization (in the 4th millennium B.C.) to the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) and, as far as the geographical extension is concerned, from Anatolia to the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan), to Mesopotamia, Iran, Arabia and the Indus Valley. It also includes the coastal regions of the Mediterranean and its major islands (Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands) with regard to the Phoenician and Punic expansion and presence in the West. The scope of the specialization is that of the two courses corresponding to the disciplines "Archaeology and Art History of the Ancient Near East" and "Phoenician-Punic Archaeology". The methodology is focused on the study of the contexts (archaeological landscape, settlement system, urban planning and architecture), of the material culture (production, circulation, function) and of the artistic culture (creation, function, fruition) in a historical-archaeological perspective. The training activities of the Oriental Curriculum include the participation to the field research activities carried out by "La Sapienza" in Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Iberian Peninsula, Aegean, Crete, Malta, Sicily and Sardinia. Each Ph.D. student will have to conduct an original and innovative research on a theoretical and methodological aspect of the ancient pre-classical cultures of the Near East or of the Mediterranean, with the aim of reaching, under the guidance of a tutor, the final publication of the dissertation.
- PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY
The course aims to prepare young scholars to the research in the field of prehistory and protohistory through the guided realization of an original study on some of the multiple aspects that fall within the analysis of the processes that lead to urbanization. The PhD students will be assigned to one or more tutor and they will apply to the research the methodologies of prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology, also through the use of archaeometric, bioarchaeological and paleoenvironmental analysis. They will consider in particular the following aspects and their transformations in a given geographical context in the chronological span of the period examined: 1) the characters of the natural environment and subsistence activities; 2) the settlement system, both as regards its relations with the environment itself and the relationships of cooperation or competition, of subordination or parity between the different settlements; 3) the extraction and circulation of raw materials; 4) the transformation of products and the circuits of exchange of manufactured goods; 5) socio-political relations, both within a community and between several human nuclei, in relation also with the incidence that economic and ideological factors can have on these aspects; 6) symbolic and artistic production.
- ETRUSCOLOGY
The curriculum of Etruscology has as its scientific objective the progress of studies in the thematic field of Etruscology and archaeology of pre-Roman Italy in a temporal span extended from the X-IX to the II-I century BC. From the point of view of the discipline, as conceived by its "founder" Massimo Pallottino, the approach to research is all-embracing, from material culture to the history of politics and institutions, from epigraphy to topographical and urban studies, to productive activities in the field of art and craftsmanship.
The only doctoral program in Italy and abroad specifically dedicated to this field of research, it traditionally welcomes young researchers from all Italian universities where Etruscology is taught. The Roman Ph.D. represents an essential value to bring new life to the ethruscological research in Italy, as it acts as an attractor both for young scholars, who can be trained in a highly specialized context, and for teachers who find there the possibility of exchange and continuous updating on the most advanced research in the field. An offer that few other universities can boast of.
The critical attitude towards the development of one's own research activity is considered an essential moment to be exercised precisely through the comparison with a highly specialized college composed of teachers of the discipline of different academic afference and with the other PhD students with whom there are moments of exchange and debate. The possibility to participate in the course of the three-year period to excavations in archaeological contexts of great importance and to researches of long tradition conducted by the sector of Etruscology within the Department of Sciences of Antiquity is a valuable and highly educational opportunity.
The objective of the curriculum is therefore to offer to those who intend to cultivate the Etruscological and Italic studies valid and updated tools both in methodology and in practice of research, in order to promote the production of scientifically valid results and such as to deserve to be published, hopefully opening the way to a university career and other occupations of high qualification.
- ANCIENT TOPOGRAPHY
The establishment of a specific curriculum in topography aims to create in the Roman site that area of study in which young researchers can experience the tools necessary to contextualize the ancient in modern society. The specialized training involves firstly the comparison between historical and documentary sources critically examined and the concreteness of the archaeological data objectively analyzed.The study of the ancient through the reconnaissance, the autopsy of the monument, the excavation, the geological analysis, becomes the primary element of the training base. From a thematic and methodological point of view, the discipline starts from the analysis of the single structure to reach its insertion in the territorial and urban context. To this end, it uses both traditional methods of survey and 3D restitution and advanced technologies (total station, GPS, numerical cartography, GIS) that are essential support for full operational autonomy.
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