§-Ancient History Q&A
SA · SACE Board← Ancient History
Ancient History Q&A by dot point
A short Q&A bank for every SA Ancient History syllabus dot point. Each question and answer is drawn directly from our worked dot-point page, so you can scan key concepts before opening the long-form answer.
Beliefs and Rituals
Examine the nature of religious belief and ritual practice in ancient Greece and Rome, including sacrifice, oracles, festivals and state cult, and evaluate the evidence for them.
Analyse New Kingdom Egyptian beliefs about death, judgement and the afterlife, the practices of mummification and tomb-building, and the archaeological and textual evidence for them.
Examine religious belief and ritual practice in the ancient Near East, including the gods, temples, kingship and creation myths, and evaluate the cuneiform and archaeological evidence.
Power and Conflict
Analyse the causes, key campaigns and consequences of Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire (336 to 323 BCE), and evaluate the reliability of the surviving sources written centuries later.
Analyse the causes, key events and consequences of the Greco-Persian Wars (499 to 479 BCE), and evaluate the reliability of Herodotus and other evidence.
Analyse the causes, key events and consequences of the Punic Wars (264 to 146 BCE), including Hannibal's invasion, and evaluate the reliability of Polybius and Livy.
Analyse the nature and transformation of political power and authority in Rome from the late Republic to the Augustan principate, and evaluate the sources for Augustus' settlement.
Analyse the institutions and operation of Athenian democracy in the fifth century BCE, including the Assembly, Council, courts and the role of leaders such as Pericles, and evaluate the evidence.
Social Structures and Everyday Life
Analyse the structure of the Roman economy and the patterns of daily life across the social orders, and evaluate the literary and archaeological evidence for them.
Analyse the social hierarchy of New Kingdom Egypt, including the role of the pharaoh, the bureaucracy, priests, scribes, peasants and the enslaved, and evaluate the evidence for everyday life.
Analyse the structure of Athenian society in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, including the status of citizens, metics and slaves, and evaluate the ancient evidence for slavery.
Analyse the social structure and system of government of Han dynasty China, including the emperor, the bureaucracy, Confucianism and the peasantry, and evaluate the textual and archaeological evidence.
Examine the position of women and the organisation of family life in ancient Athens and Rome, and evaluate the source problems involved in recovering women's experience.
Sources and Historiography
Apply the skills of source analysis and evaluation to ancient primary and secondary evidence, assessing origin, purpose, perspective, reliability and usefulness.
Explain how archaeological evidence and material culture are excavated, dated and interpreted, and evaluate what physical remains can and cannot tell historians about ancient societies.
Explain the nature of historiography in ancient history, analyse how ancient and modern historians have interpreted the past differently, and evaluate why those interpretations change.