The Department's research focuses on the following areas:

• Influence and reception of the ancient world in contemporary South Africa 
• Study of ancient languages and cultures in the digital age
• Religion, philosophy and morality in ancient texts
• Material culture and iconography
• Bible languages, translation and interpretation
• Museum and heritage studies
• Greek and Latin literature, individual and society
• Ancient cultures: methodology and interpretation models
• Afro-Asiatic and African languages
• Linguistics
  

Influence and reception of the Ancient World in contemporary South Africa

• The literary reception of Roman poetry (De Villiers)
• The ancient world and popular culture (Cornelius)
• Collections of classical antiquities in South African museums (Masters)

The study of ancient languages and cultures in the digital age

• Multimedia and ancient cultures (Cornelius, Daniels)

Religion, philosophy and morality in ancient texts

• Greek and Roman moral philosophy and religions (Thom)
• Early Christian literature (Thom, A Kotzé)

Material culture and iconography

• Iconography of the Ancient Near East (Cornelius)
• Classical art and iconography (Masters)
• Ancient childhood and material culture (Masters and Daniels)

Bible languages, translation and interpretation

• Cognitive linguistics and the translation of the Bible (Van der Merwe)
• The semantics and pragmatics of Biblical Hebrew (Van der Merwe)
• The Old Testament and the ancient world (Cornelius)
• Linguistics and translation of the Greek New Testament (Thom)
• The New Testament and the ancient world (Thom)

Museum and heritage studies

• A catalogue of artefacts from ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East in South African collections (Cornelius)
• South African Mummy Project (Cornelius)
• Collections of classical antiquities in South African Museums (Masters)

Greek and Latin literature, individual and society

• Roman lyric and elegiac poetry (De Villiers)
• Roman epic (De Villiers)
• Augustine (A Kotzé)
• Late antiquity (Thom, A Kotzé)

Ancient cultures: methodology and interpretation models

• Cognitive linguistics and interpretation (Van der Merwe)