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Ancient History

Books and e-books

You can search for books and e-books simultaneously through the Library catalogue, Explore, which is the principal tool for finding books, journals and other materials held in UCL libraries (whether in print or electronic format). 

The print collection is located on the 1st floor of the UCL Main Library and is arranged by subject in accordance with Garside, UCL's own classification scheme. Each book has a shelfmark on the spine which consists of the name of the collection, followed by a letter and number indicating the subject, and the first three letters of the author's surname.

The sequence begins with books on ancient history generally (ANC. HIST. A) and the ancient Near East generally (ANC. HIST. B), arranged by topic. These sections are followed by books on the history of specific geographical regions, for example Mesopotamia (ANC. HIST. D), Persia & Iran (ANC. HIST. F), Greece (ANC. HIST. P) and Rome (ANC. HIST. R). 

E-books are catalogued individually and may be accessed directly through Explore. There's further information about finding, using and citing e-books in our e-books guide.

Other collections

Materials relevant to the study of Ancient History can also be found in the following Library collections:

  • Classics: for works of the ancient historians 
  • Law: for Roman law
  • Literature: for works of the ancient historians translated into English

The Institute of Archaeology Library houses collections relating to the following subject areas:

How can you tell if a book is available online?

On UCL Explore, you can look at the results of your search to quickly discover if a book is available in print or/and online: View Online means that the book is available electronically, while Available means that the book is available in print. In some cases a book is available both in print and online. 

E-books Explore screenshot