The Institute of Ancient History has increasingly shifted its research interests in recent years, moving away from traditional areas of interest, such as the history of events and constitutional history, and towards other promising areas. These include cultural, social, and economic history, the history of mentalities and everyday life, as well as regional studies. Particular areas of interest currently include research on violence and crime in Antiquity, the historical topography of Asia Minor, the Nile Delta and Northern Mesopotamia, the history of the family and of ancient ritual, the diachronic historical study of Anatolian law from the Hittites to the Roman period, the transformation of urban culture in Late Antiquity, as well as mechanisms of power in early empires. The Institute further focuses on the Digital Humanities, especially on creating and updating an online corpus of texts, the "Ancient Records of Middle Eastern Polities" (ARMEP).
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