Uncovering ancient Arabian inscriptions feels like pioneering detective work, says Arabist Michael Macdonald in a video interview with Leiden Islam Centre LUCIS. 'First you have to learn the alphabets that they're written in, and then you have to try and work out what they say.'

Desertification is threatening 250 million people worldwide. Ecologists have tried to predict the spread of deserts. Help is now at hand from an unexpected source: mathematicians.

Promotor: P. T. de Zeeuw, Co-promotor: N. Neumayer; G. van de Ven

This project aims to excavate and date the setting of the east gate of the Roman fortress of Udhruḥ. This will be compared with other Diocletianic military installations from the region. We also hope to retrieve another gate inscription which can shed light on the function and political embedding of…

The project examines the political conflict in the Red River Valley of Louisiana between the majority-black Republican Party and the overwhelmingly white Democratic Party by studying the composition and actions of each party.

Scientists rarely take ‘paranormal experiences’ seriously. Furthermore, in the recent past the concept of the ‘paranormal’ did not even exist in philosophy. William James, who extensively studied mediumistic phenomena, labelled them ‘wild beasts of the philosophical desert’.

The Sun and all the stars in the night sky reside in the Milky Way galaxy. In the at-rest reference frame of the Galaxy, typical stars travel with velocities of about 100-200 kilometres per second.

The origin and evolution of galaxies are closely tied to the cyclic feedback processes between stars and the interstellar medium (ISM).

Show People offers a comprehensive history of the film star from Mary Pickford to Andy Serkis, traversing more than one hundred years and drawing on examples from America, Britain, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

How did galaxies form? How did galaxies evolve?

December 2020 saw the crowning publication of the Landscapes of Survival project by Professor Peter Akkermans. Its main topic is human habitation in marginal environments like the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. ‘The people living here built their own society, and they would not have viewed it as…

The project seeks to come to an understanding of the archaeology of the desert and the ways in which its inhabitants engaged with their constraint, marginal environments through time. It compares and interprets site distribution and community organisation over a long time scale and across several different…

The faculty's research on the ancient rock art found in Jordan's Black Desert has recently been covered by several news and science websites.

Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan’s Black Desert (200 BC to 800 AD)

A team of European astronomers under Leiden leadership has discovered that dust particles around a star already coagulate before the star is fully grown. These agglomerated dust particles are the first step in the formation of planets. The research publish their discovery in the journal of Nature As…

The Jordan Times interviewed professor Peter Akkermans about this research on ancient tombs in Jordan's Eastern Desert. “The evidence of this flourishing culture can be seen, among other things, in the diverse and complex burial record which we are currently investigating.”

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond

This research project of the Catholic University of Leuven was created in 1976 by Professor Dr Pierre Vermeersch, who assumed its direction until 2003. The present director is Professor Dr Philip Van Peer.

Lecture, Histories Connected: Work-in-Progress

The centre of our Galaxy is so dark and dense that it is almost impossible to observe what is inside. By catching the rare hypervelocity stars that are ejected from it, Elena Maria Rossi aims to unveil the mysterious environment around the supermassive black hole inside. But she’ll also be solving another…

Update : March 2020 Director: Professor Dr Harco Willems (KU Leuven), co-director Dr Marleen De Meyer (KU Leuven & NVIC)

An international team led by Leiden astronomers has taken the first-ever image of a young, Sun-like star accompanied by two giant exoplanets. The researchers used The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope for this, known as ESO’s VLT. Images of systems with multiple exoplanets are extremely…

The research addresses the question of “what is the impact of geopolitical changes to the pivot states in the Middle East? With special focus on Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.”

The Leiden | Islam interview series contains short documentary-style videos including interview flashes with leading scholars in the field of Islam and Muslim societies. With this series, LUCIS aims to show the value of unconventional insights related to Islam and Muslim societies, and to relate them…

The night side of exoplanet WASP-43b, to the surprise of astronomers, does not appear to contain methane. It is likely that extreme winds do not allow enough time for methane to form in detectable amounts. This is the conclusion of an international team of scientists, with Leiden and Amsterdam contributions,…

This dissertation is a study of archaeological remains left behind by nomadic communities in the Black Desert, situated in the northeast of modern Jordan.

High-angular-resolution observations of the circumstellar material have uncovered numerous and very diverse substructures in protoplanetary discs, raising the question of whether they are caused by forming planets or other mechanisms.

In ancient times, the desert in the Udhruh region in Jordan was transformed into a green oasis. An intricate network of underground water channels was part of an ancient system of water management, storing water and preventing loss through evaporation. Archaeologist Mark Driessen found a new way to…

Are there other planets like the earth, and will there also be life? Astronomers study planets around stars other than the sun, with the aim to find out what kind of gasses their atmospheres are made up with.

This thesis presents pioneering work on the panchromatic emission of some of the most luminous galaxies in the early Universe: star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei.

The solar system was formed approximately 4.56 billion years ago. Despite the numerous theories that have been developed over the years, the formation and evolution of the solar system still remain unclear.

Recent fieldwork at the vast desert region in north-eastern Jordan has revealed an immensely rich heritage of an area that is difficult to access and archaeologically less known. Professor Peter Akkermans was interviewed about his groundbreaking research in this area, known as the Black Desert.

About 15 km to the south of the ancient city of Petra, archaeologists from the University of Leiden have discovered an impressive network of ancient water conservation measures and irrigated field systems.

Supervisor: S.F. Portegies Zwart Co-Supervisor: A.G.A. Brown

The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden features a small photo exhibition on Mark Driessen's fieldwork research project in Southern Jordan. In this small exhibition you will see a selection of nine photos, made in Udhruh. This ancient Jordanian settlement lies fifteen kilometres east of Petra,…

How are the building blocks of life formed?

Lecture, Histories Connected: Work-in-Progress

In recent years, the Walad Djifir from Chad found themselves in a turbulent environment due to the unrest in Nigeria, Libya and the Central African Republic. How did they adapt? Inge Butter explored their situation in her PhD thesis. PhD defence will take place on 2 July.

New insights into the Fayum Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic.

Promotor: K.H. Kuijken

Library of Arabic Literature: Critical Edition and Translation of Ibn Qutaybah’s Faḍl al-ʿArab.

Simulations of galaxies help researchers understand astronomical observations better. The EAGLE simulation, a large project in which Leiden astronomers play a leading role, shows the evolution of the Universe, from just after the Big Bang to the present day.