As part of the celebrations around the 25th birthday of the Faculty of Archaeology, a panel discussion on the future of archaeology was organised on December 13th. For this discussion an international panel of scholars was invited to give their perspective and enter into conversation with our Faculty…

The Marie Curie Doctoral Network Programme entitled from Antiquity to Community: rethinking Classical heritage through Citizen Science (https://antcom.eu/antcom/) advertises 10 PhD positions in Denmark, Italy and Spain. Deadline: April 24.

Read about protecting heritage, the LDE traineeship and the importance of international postdocs in the summer edition of the LDE Magazine.

At a time when statues of figures from history have an uncertain future Valika Smeulders has just become Head of History at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. What changes does she want to make? And how does she look back on her Languages and Cultures of Latin America degree programme in Leiden?

Course

As convener for the EASA Network for the Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity, Jasmijn Rana organized a two-day symposium on Decolonizing European Anthropology. It brought together anthropologists from different European countries and non-European anthropologists working in and on Europe. Discussions…

The Museum enjoys the highest reputation internationally

Valerio Gentile received the award during the Reuvensdagen for his master's thesis 'Martiality in Practice'. He is the first international student who wins this prestigious award. The W.A. van Es Prize is annually awarded by the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency.

Alexander Geurds, Andrea Waters-Rist, and Laura Van Broekhoven are in the race for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant (Canada).

Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart has developed a way to use Deep Learning and geography software to rapidly and systematically map prehistoric barrows, Celtic fields, and medieval charcoal kilns. This innovative method has been tested on high-resolution elevation maps from the Veluwe, the Netherlands.…

Last Wednesday February 1st, Leiden University College The Hague hosted the graduation ceremony of its Class of 2016 ½. 22 students received their diplomas in a festive ceremony in the auditorium of LUC The Hague. It was the first ceremony with the new dean of LUC, Prof. dr. Judi Mesman. In the inspired…

On December 1, the Faculty of Archaeology hosted the LANCE internship and job market 2022 for our BA2 and BA3 students. No less than 14 Dutch commercial archaeology firms and 13 faculty staff members informed some 170 students about the archaeological research projects they are carrying out.

It is the fourth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Ranking by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) recently issued a new collection policy plan, containing priorities for the coming years regarding the formation, management, availability, and use of the UBL collection.

A series of sessions on the literary heritage of Anglo-Dutch relations (c. 1050-c. 1600) will be held at the Society for Renaissance Studies (29 June - 1 July 2021).

The Norwegian Institute in Rome organizes an interdisciplinary conference entitled "The Longue Durée of Cultural Heritage. Curation of the Past from Antiquity to the Present Day". For more information: k.b.aavitsland@roma.uio.no. Paper proposals can be submitted to the same email address until 15 May…

The Dutch Research School Art History (OSK) and Utrecht University organize the Technical Art History Days. On April 4 and 5, experts present and discuss current research at Utrecht University that brings together material and digital approaches for the study of art and heritage.

Students of the Leiden University Faculty of Archaeology once again explore the archaeology of Oss between April and May of 2023. New areas along the Gewandeweg will be investigated. The local news platform DTV Nieuws featured an article about it.

The Central European University is a graduate-level, English-language university with a multi-disciplinary Medieval Department that offers MA and PhD programs in Late Antique, Medieval and Early Modern Studies as well as in Cultural Heritage Studies. Deadline: 1 February 2023.

The Faculty of Archaeology has a long research tradition in the municipality of Oss. Since 1974, researchers and students have been carrying out archaeological research here. In Januari 2019, an enormous replica of one of the top local finds was unveiled standing in the middle of a roundabout.

For thousands of years, the prehistoric communities of the Low Countries followed their own path, compared with the rest of Europe. An international research team has now published these findings in Nature.

Course

Tell Balata Archaeological Park project On January 15th the cooperation project of the Faculty of Archaeology with the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage) and the Ramallah office of UNESCO was officially closed. At the same time the Archaeological…

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

Drones are proving to be a good means of mapping man-made changes in the landscape. Geophysicist Till Sonneman and his colleagues (archaeology) are experimenting with drones in inaccessible areas of the Caribbean.

In January, Dr Karsten Lambers was appointed as Professor of Digital and Computational Archaeology at Leiden University's Faculty of Archaeology. With his extensive background in both archaeological research and computational sciences, the installation of Professor Lambers further strengthens this discipline…

An incredible quantity of archaeological reports are stored in digital archives. If you want to search for information in them, you have to do this manually. And that is a real chore. Archaeologist Alex Brandsen has now used deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to develop a search engine…

The objectives of the 2011 campaign Tell Balata Archaeological Park are to carry out excavations, promotion and awareness, community involvement, gathering oral histories and educating children. The objectives are described in a handout produced for the opening ceremony on June 21st 2011.

On January 12 the Steering Committee Science4Arts awarded the application of Prof.dr. Maarten Jansen entitled:

The feature drama film In Times of Rain will have its world premiere at the Guanajuato International Film Festival (#GIFF 2018) in Mexico. The film is a result of the Leiden University project ‘Time in lntercultural Context’, funded by the European Research Council.

On 1 September, Ad Maas, curator of Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, was appointed professor by special appointment. In this role, he will primarily focus on the representation of natural sciences in museums.

Leiden is proud to announce that the city has been selected to host the 33rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), scheduled for 25-28 August 2027.

Anthropologist Erik de Maaker has received a grant from the Himalayan Universities Consortium worth USD 37.000, along with researchers from Yunnan Minzu University (Kunming, China), Sikkim University (India), the Royal University of Bhutan (Thimpu, Bhutan). The grant, to be used in 2018/2019, is meant…

Various researchers from Leiden University have been awarded NWO (Dutch Research Council) Open Competition funding. Nine social sciences and humanities projects will receive the funding.

Lecture, Book Presentation

Our event on the fourth and fifth of September 2019 at the Alden Biesen castle was a succes! We captivated the attendees with informal learning in the heritage sector and where the BADGES toolbox was introduced

In June 2024, the University of Groningen organizes a summer school, titled "Things that Matter". The Summer School explores challenges in digitizing source materials, questioning distinctions between physical and digital copies. It delves into the impact of virtual collections and criteria for digitization,…

During the Interpret Europe Conference 2016 in Mechelen, the workshop Quality Criteria and Success Factors for Heritage Interpretation was held by the Swedish Centre for Nature Interpretation’s Per Sonnvik and Lena Malmström as part of the conference’s InHerit strand.

Geoglyphs decorate the ground near the town of Boha, India, and add up a total distance of about 30 miles. They were discovered by Carlo and Yohann Oetheimer. Our Assistant Professor Karsten Lambers was asked to respond by Vice.

The Department of History and Art History externe link at Utrecht University is looking for a candidate for the PhD-project “The (R)evolution of Reconstruction: an analysis of digital facsimiles”. This project analyses the value of digital facsimiles for researchers, heritage institutions, and museum…

Apps that can precisely identify shards, coins or heel bones: archaeology has embraced artificial intelligence. Alex Brandsen is working on a search engine that scans vast quantities of text from an archaeological viewpoint.

With his master's thesis 'The patriot behind the pot' Wytze Stellingwerf reached second place, among 38 contestants, in the IISG Thesis Award 2017.

Cultural Anthropologist Jasmijn Rana argues in the opinion piece ''Black', 'white', or 'of colour' is not about purity' in the Leiden University Weekly Mare to use uneasiness about being reduced to skin colour and gender to fight racism.

Why and how do people collect things? Why does a museum display one object and not another? These questions are at the heart of the interdisciplinary research programme Museums, Collections and Society. The programme is holding a conference for scholars and the general public on 5 and 6 July.

Two courses on Central Asia will be offered within the Leiden Central Asia Initiative, funded by the research profile area Asian Modernities and Traditions. 'History of Central Asia & Afghanistan' will be open to BA students of Middle Eastern Studies and 'Material Culture, Memory and Commemoration along…

Another year's end draws near. And what a year it has been! On December 12th staff and students of the Faculty of Archaeology came together to celebrate and reminisce. Professor Joanita Vroom got us in a festive mood by telling tales of Byzantine banquets, while a chef served historical dishes to sa…

During the past year online meetings and lectures have become a firm feature of university life. One of the highlights of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics’ online activities has been the online seminar series ‘Language policy and practices in the Global North and South’ organised by guest…

What practical steps can we take to resolve cross-border claims to looted art and prevent illicit trafficking in cultural goods? That's what the European Parliament asked Leiden legal scholar Evelien Campfens. Her advice: develop a registration system, issue art with a ‘passport’ and set up a European…