QCAA Ancient History case studies
QCAA Ancient History · Put your knowledge to work in context.
Ancient History is a General senior syllabus from the Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority, published as the Ancient History General senior syllabus 2025 (v1.4) and intended for implementation with students who will complete their study of the course in 2026 or beyond. It suits Queensland senior students building a Humanities pathway who want to work with archaeological and written evidence from the ancient world rather than modern sources. The QCAA Ancient History case studies are 5 cases and about 2,267 words.
1Reading a Damaged Inscription: The Fragmentary Dedication of a Roman Benefactor
A student is analysing a fragmentary Latin inscription from a provincial town, dated by letter forms to roughly the early second century CE. Three lines survive.
539 words, about 3 min2Evaluating a Persian Royal Inscription as Evidence for Policy
A student is studying a royal inscription of a Persian king in which he lists the lands and peoples 'which came to me and by the favour of Ahura Mazda became subject to me'. The student uses it to argue that the empire was centrally administered and culturally uniform, and that the listed peoples were loyal subjects.
452 words, about 2 min3Sourcing a Battle Narrative: Numbers, Speeches, and the Historian's Method
A student is writing on a major hoplite battle using a narrative historian who wrote within a generation of the event but who includes pre-battle speeches, precise casualty figures for both sides, and a dramatic account of a commander's death. The student's draft treats the speech as a verbatim record, quotes the casualty figures as exact, and says the account is trustworthy because the author was nearly contemporary.
424 words, about 2 min4Museum Display and the Ethics of Restoring a Damaged Object
A museum plans a display around a damaged ceramic vessel reconstructed from 40 fragments, with about 15 per cent of the body missing. The curator proposes filling the gaps with a smooth neutral material so the vessel reads as complete, and labelling it simply 'wine cup, 5th century BCE'.
409 words, about 2 min5Contested Ownership: Repatriation and the Argument from Context
A national museum holds a set of sculpted architectural pieces removed from a monument in another country during a nineteenth-century expedition. The source country requests return, arguing the pieces were taken without consent and that their meaning depends on the monument.
443 words, about 2 min