Welcome Address

The Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations (IHAC) at the Northeast Normal University (NENU), Changchun (People’s Republic of China) welcomes you very much! IHAC is a research institute on ancient history, ancient languages, and archaeology. Founded in 1984 by the Chinese professor Lin Zhichun (Northeast Normal University) in cooperation with Zhou Gucheng (Fudan University) and Wu Yujin (Wuhan University), the IHAC was the first Chinese institute to establish chairs and academic research positions for Assyriology, Egyptology, Hittitology and (Western) Classics, and has contributed substantially to the development of these fields in China.

The inspiring academic atmosphere is due to the unique combination of mainly Chinese faculty staff, highly motivated students and annually renewable research and teaching positions for foreign visiting professors. Besides long-term visiting professors, the IHAC regularly invites scholars around the world to give lectures, contribute to workshop as well as conferences, and do research in the up-to-date library. IHAC offers two degree programs for both domestic and overseas students (MA and PhD) during which our students acquire an effective understanding of one or two ancient languages, the history and culture of the specific field and develop their knowledge of scholarly English and other modern languages (e.g. German, French or Italian).

Since 1986, the IHAC publishes the Journal of Ancient Civilizations (JAC) which became a double blind peer-reviewed journal in 2016. JAC provides a forum for the discussion of various aspects of the cultural and historical processes in the Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean world, encompassing studies of individual civilizations as well as common elements, contacts and interactions among them (e.g. in such traditional fields as Assyriology, Classics, Egyptology, Hittitology, and Sinology, among others).

Contact Details

Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations (IHAC)

Northeast Normal University

5268 Renmin Street

130024 Changchun

Jilin Province

People’s Republic of China  

Director: Prof. Dr. ZHANG Qiang, email: xiaoheizhang@hotmail.com

Vice-director: Prof. Dr. phil. Sven Günther, M.A., email: sveneca@aol.com

Homepage: http://ihac.nenu.edu.cn/ENGLISH/Home.htm

IHAC on Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_History_of_Ancient_Civilizations (German) / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_History_of_Ancient_Civilizations (English)

JAC on Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Ancient_Civilizations (German)

For the History of IHAC and Classics in China, cf. Brashear, W. 1990. “Classics in China.” The Classical Journal 86/1: 73-78; id. 1998. “China Update 1997.” The Classical Journal 94/1: 81-85.