The subject areas Egyptology, Ancient History, Greek Philology, Classical Archaeology, Latin Philology, and European Archaeology come together to constitute Ancient Civilizations in Basel. Following our respective research questions and methods, our work focuses on the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures from the 3rd millennium BCE to the end of Late Antiquity, on the cultures of Central European pre- and protohistory, as well as their interactions with their respective neighbors. A methodological complement is provided by natural science archaeology.

Thus, Ancient Civilizations in Basel encompass the entire temporal spectrum from prehistory to the end of Late Antiquity and the material and conceptual spectrum from the first anthropogenic remains and the legacy of the oldest writing cultures up to highly differentiated evidence of material culture, literature, art, and science.