On 13 September 2023 Eline Scheerlinck successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Leiden University provides ambitious students with the most recent and innovative areas of knowledge, and offers them the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

The Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics 2026 offers a varied program of introductory as well as more advanced courses in Anatolian, Classics, Descriptive Linguistics, Language Documentation, Eastern Christianity, Germanic, General Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Indo-European, Indology,…

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their full potential.

Research on papyri has provided new insights into the history of the origins of Islam. Petra Sijpesteijns’s book,'Shaping a Muslim State', is based on these ancient Arabic letters and documents. Her new research on a Viennese collection of untranslated papyri is expected to produce more discoveries.

This NWO-funded VICI project (2025-2030) led by Prof.dr. Petra M. Sijpesteijn examines the place-making processes in the early Islamic Empire.

Area studies is an approach to knowledge that starts from the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present, through the relevant source languages, with central regard for issues of positionality.

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 12 February 2026 at 6:00 pm.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Thousands of students and researchers from eight partner universities in the Netherlands and Flanders have been able to gain valuable experience in Egypt through the institute. Good reason for a celebrat…

The Leiden Summerschool in Languages and Linguistics, including courses in Papyrology, is now open. BA/MA/PhD students are welcome to attend.

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

On the 26th of February, 2018, it was exactly 25 years ago that the coins of ‘Verzameling Mr. B. Kolff’ were handed over to the Leiden Papyrological Institute.

The Research MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations covers two years and can be studied in four tracks: Classics is one of them. While diving into the literary, cultural and intellectual worlds of Greece and Rome, you will be involved in current research, and stimulated to reflect on the significance…

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Assyriology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Egyptology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Egyptology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations at Leiden University covers the entire range of present-day research on the civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, Greece and the Roman Empire. In chronological terms, the program covers thousands of years, from the early origins…

Leiden University's master’s programme in Ancient History is your opportunity to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the history of the Greek and Roman periods, with a focus on the mentality and social and economic history of the period between 400 B.C. and 400 A.D.

Leiden University provides ambitious students with the most recent and innovative areas of knowledge, and offers them the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Assyriology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Classics offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

Just published:

On 8 December, on the occasion of her 65th birthday, Cisca Hoogendijk was surprised with a festive bundle of 56 text editions by friends and colleagues, edited by her former students Dr Joanne Vera Stolk and Guus A.J.C. van Loon, MA.

On February 2nd, 2018, Professor Sven P. Vleeming of Trier University was presented with a ‘Festschrift’ to celebrate his retirement last summer. The book was presented to him, in the presence of friends and colleagues from the Netherlands and abroad, by the editors: his former Leiden colleagues Koen…

Studying one another’s languages and cultures fosters understanding between groups of people, which leads to more equality, along with increased economic, administrative, and cultural cooperation.

Just published:

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

The project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space’ investigates the histories of various LGBT+ archives in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

Doctoral research on the history of the critical visitor and their efforts at founding alternative archives including LGBT+-focused, feminist, disability and digitizing projects, resulting in a traveling exhibition on findings (with audio-guides), popular and scholarly article, and a dissertation.

Doctoral research on recent developments in museological practices by “critical” curators, interventionist artists, and personnel initiatives, focusing on ‘queering’ as an entrance point to broader intersectional issues; resulting in a report on the ‘Queer Baseline’ (to be launched in 2020), a popular…

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

What can papyri teach us about antiquity? Students of papyrology in Leiden try to answer questions about life in antiquity aided by papyri from our collection.

TEXTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT. Highlights from the Collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute. Online exhibition on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the foundation ‘Het Leids Papyrologisch Instituut’ in 2015.

When Petra Sijpesteijn became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, she was the only Dutch member with an appointment at a Dutch university. Two years later, she is also the only Dutch member of the Austrian Academy and officially joined the British Academy on 7 October.

Leiden Asia Departments

On Monday 26 February the terrible news reached us that our gifted former Egyptology student – and former student assistant at the Leids Papyrologisch Instituut – Juan Archidona Ramírez had succumbed to cancer.

This March, LUCSoR alumnus Dr. Mattias Brand received the Gerardus van der Leeuw PhD Dissertation Award from the Dutch Association for the Study of Religion (NGG) for his dissertation, “The Manichaeans of Kellis: Religion, Community, and Everyday Life”. It is a biennial award for a PhD dissertation…

The Leiden-Birmingham network initiative welcomes applications from colleagues from Leiden University and the University of Birmingham for a research stay at one of the two host institutions.

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

If you had something important to write down in ancient times, you would usually write in Greek in the eastern Mediterranean. University lecturer Joanne Stolk has been awarded an ERC grant to explore the kinds of spelling mistakes that were made in these scripts. And, more importantly, what improvements…

Two-day Seminar