Research on the Ancient Near East is still at an initial stage in Brazil. The situation of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching is similar. Although its horizon encompasses fundamental experiences for understanding the history of human societies, it is a domain that is still precariously explored and much dispersed.
LAOP (Ancient Near East Research Group, linked to the Department of History at the University of São Paulo) is a forum that brings together specialists from various areas and whose objective is to promote academic activities aimed at increasing research and training conditions for new scholars.
LAOP's work is plural: it aims to bring together professors, researchers, and students who have the Ancient Near East as their area of interest, from a historical, linguistic, and/or archaeological perspective. Its horizons are vast and diverse, encompassing the ancient societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Syro-Palestinian corridor, Persia, etc., thus covering millennia of human history.