During the Tackling Heritage sessions, we bring together people at different stages of their academic trajectory, primarily from Leiden University's Cultural Anthropology department but also beyond. Through collective reading, discussion, and collaborative experiments, we take an anthropological approach…

This 4-year research project focuses on vernacular and unacknowledged heritages of the highlands of Bhutan. It seeks to make a major contribution to the preservation of these heritages, to create a cultural resource for current and future generations.

This project investigates diversifying and democratizing heritage through practices of “home-making”. We propose to research ‘home-making’ as a non-binary practice of combining memories of roots and routes, dwelling in the present, and desires for the future.

This project investigates ancient water management of streams, springs and runoffs on the archaeological site of Monte Albán, Mexico, as a means to contribute with different stakeholders in the development of sustainable solutions to water problems today such as floods and scarcity.

Exploring the intersection of environmental conservation, indigenous cultural expectations, and human-nonhuman relationships in the Eastern Himalayas. Developing inclusive approaches to ecological preservation through community-centered research.

This project involves research into the oeuvre of the Sundanese sculptor Iko, who has worked for the Catholic mission in Java and has carved sculptures for a chapel and church in Ganjuran. The images were designed by the Catholic layman Jos Schmutzer and are characterized by a fusion in style and symbolism…

As part of the Leiden Heritage Deal, the Municipality of Leiden collaborates with Leiden University, Naturalis, and the Leiden Regional Heritage Office, to study the climate challenges facing the city centre and its historic green and blue networks. The goal is to contribute to a biodiverse, climate-resilient…

Conference

This project combines an extensive new open database on linguistic distributions, spatial modelling and areal linguistics in order to disentangle the roles of social and environmental factors on the emergence of linguistic diversity patterns of South America.

The project contends that in Late Antiquity (c. 300-500 AD) both the figure of Christ and those of Pythagoras and Socrates underwent a parallel process of metamorphosis facilitated not least through an intellectual exchange between Christian theologians and Neoplatonic philosophers. From Iamblichus…

Which plants in the Mediterranean garden were already known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and how were they utilized?

The prehistory of communication metaphors

How do contemporary authorship and scholarship work together to shape the way that early twentieth century literary and cultural movements are remembered today?

ERC Starting Grant: The Van Manen Project. This five year project (2023-2028) is made possible with an ERC Starting Grant. It aims to (digitally) reunite all parts of the Van Manen Collection. This enables us to study it as a whole, helping us to understand the process of collection formation. More…

Dr Gül Aktürk Hauser (Assistant Professor, Department of Heritage and Society, Faculty of Archaeology) and Dr Sophie Starrenburg (Assistant Professor, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden Law School) organised a workshop titled ‘An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Heritage Reparations:…

Grassroots heritage initiatives and community engagement

This programma, an initiative of the Institute for History in partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta. Aims to study more than 20 kilometers of Dutch archival materials in The Netherlands, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and South Africa.

Late Antiquity is characterized by migration movements, political unrest and religious strife. The way we assess these religious conflicts is often coloured by a post-Reformation understanding of ‘religion’. In my research, I show that late ancient authors understood religion in a way that differs much…

Which fungi live in Leiden University’s historic buildings and collections, and how can their impact on heritage and human health be understood and managed?

Ancient historians have long been aware that patterns of coin circulation can shed light on levels of economic integration in the Roman Empire. More than forty years ago, Hopkins argued that large amounts of tax money were spent in the frontier provinces and that the non-military provinces recouped…

The Dutch museum landscape is among the most forward-thinking worldwide, in terms of innovations in engaging diverse audiences and stakeholders. Building on the museum studies and art history programmes at Leiden University, the Museum Lab explored conceptual and practical aspects of the museum as a…

Contemporary Maya Calendars

Debate, Open meeting

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.

Houses, warehouses, wells, a mooring and even a stable. All of this can be seen on the oldest known map of the island of Dejima acquired by Leiden University Libraries (UBL). The map provides a highly detailed picture of a tiny living environment on the isolated island.

Investigating epistemic and ethical practices in medical experimentation on humans in the colonial period in Southeast Asia.

What was life like for people with disabilities in the Middle Ages? University lecturer Krista Milne delved into medieval manuscripts and found more than thirty images of assistance dogs of all shapes and sizes. Now, a Vidi grant is enabling her to expand her research to include the question of what…

In the early modern period, it was perfectly normal to find recipes, legal documents or medical writings in a book of poems. Holly Riach studied the underlying principles of these ‘miscellanies’ during her PhD.

Alumna Lisa Koolhoven is the granddaughter of a Rotterdam woman who experienced the ‘forgotten bombing’ of the city on 31 March 1943. Her friend Kristen Hayford has an American grandfather who served in the Air Force during the Second World War. In their podcast ‘Beb & Bob| Collateral Damage ’, they…

Festival, Study trip Greek and Roman History 2026

Professor Ariadne Schmidt and Associate Professor Arie van Steensel (University of Groningen) have produced A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Leiden, the first English-language history of Leiden. Mayor Peter Heijkoop received the first copy.

How has landscape and land use changed in these two case studies since independence? What has caused these changes, whether anthropogenic or natural? How do local communities in the areas of study perceive these changes? How can community knowledge be integrated with mapping tools (GIS) to contribute…

Over the past year, historian Fenna IJtsma delved into 'four centuries of historical greenery'. As part of the Heritage Deal, with input from biologists at Naturalis and others, she looked for inspiration and examples from the past to contribute to a future climate-proof city centre.

In 2010, the remnants of a 16th century indigenous village were discovered in St. Vincent, on the construction terrain of the new International Argyle Airport.

The Van Loon project sets out to safeguard the archives of Dutch archaeologist Maurits van Loon (Amsterdam, September 22, 1923 - Montpellier, October 12, 2006) and make them accessible for further study.

Considering Mesoamerican Precolonial books as material objects

Festschrift for Prof. Dr Raymond H.A. Corbey in celebration of his 70th birthday