Ancient History – All a Matter of the Right Source

There are those among us who have the nagging feeling we’ve been here before. Although we might not claim to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra or Julius Caesar, we feel ourselves drawn towards those realms of the distant past, enveloped by a world both familiar and tantalisingly shrouded in mystery. We almost know those figures as well as we do our intimate friends. And then, there are our students! How do you draw them into this world so far away and so long before? How can you get them interested when the Ancients left no YouTube clips and forgot to save their Snapchat?

In this case, it all comes down to your sources. What can you draw on to bring this world alive?

While you may have been drawn in by the well-thumbed copy of Herodotus or Thucydides handed over by an inspiring professor, your students may not be as appreciative of the static presentations it contains. Textbooks go one better with photos, maps and descriptions but more and more they are limited in their ability to inspire students. Today students need the additional visual stimulus provided by digital technologies.

Fortunately, many sites set for study in the Australian curriculum such as Knossos, Ancient Rome, The Acropolis, Pompeii and Herculaneum all come with a range of YouTube clips and virtual tours (as well as possibly dubious film versions of the events; see the 300’s films for an “interesting” version of the Battle of Thermopylae, Battle of Artemisium and the Battle of Salamis!). Lund University in Sweden released a YouTube clip, in October 2016 that provides a detailed digital reconstruction of the House of Caecilius Lucundus as part of their ongoing documentation of the site. Even Google maps offers virtual access to the areas to enhance study. Of course, these virtual field trips vary greatly in quality and even the experts agree “Clearly VFTs cannot provide the physical perception that one has in the field” (Jacobson, Militello, Baveye, 2009).

---