On January 17th 2023, Caterina Ghini, Ambassador of Greece to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, visited the Faculty of Archaeology. Her Excellency reached out to Leiden University with the purpose to collaborate and engage with us.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy regularly updates its digital bookshelf with recommendations of recent books on diplomacy, global affairs, and international studies.

Another year has reached its end. And what a year it has been! On December 4th staff and students of the Faculty of Archaeology came together to celebrate and reminisce. The event's central topic was the end of Jan Kolen's term as Dean. Martina Revello Lami moderated the event.

Within the space of a few months, the Heritage Quest citizen science project, whereby volunteers scan elevation maps of the Veluwe area for burial mounds and other prehistoric remains, has already led to groundbreaking new insights. Hundreds of burial mounds have been found, as have a huge number of…

Recently, Valentina Azzarà joined the Faculty of Archaeology as a postdoc in the Archaeology of the Near East research group. She mostly focuses on the archaeology of Eastern Arabia, especially Oman. “I literally fell in love with the place.”

Linguist Sara Petrollino has written the first detailed grammar of Hamar, a language spoken in south-west Ethiopia that has some unique characteristics. PhD defence 10 November.

Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart, PhD candidates in the Digital Archaeology research group and the Data Science Research Programme, have been awarded a 444 grant by Young Academy Leiden. They are going to use it to hold a session in Oxford on improving collaboration between researchers…

Olivier Nieuwenhuyse, member of the Faculty of Archaeology, was successful in receiving a grant from the Bijvanck Foundation for a first campaign of work at Tell Begum, northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan). A small international team directed by Olivier Nieuwenhuyse in a joint effort with the Directorate…

Archaeologists from Leiden University and the municipality of Apeldoorn have excavated two prehistoric ancestral mounds dating from 300 years BC at the 'Echoput' royal estate. The findings were presented to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix on Friday 2 November.

At the VIth Monte Albán Round Table conference (July 2011) in Oaxaca, Mexico, Maarten Jansen (Leiden University) together with Mexican archaeologists Dante García and Iván Rivera (both from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) discussed the topography and toponyms of the archaeological…

Quentin Bourgeois, Associate Professor of European Prehistory, will assume the position of Vice-Dean for Education at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University as of 1 February 2026, for a term of four years. Quentin Bourgeois succeeds Alex Geurds, who became Dean of the Faculty on 1 January 2…

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

Erik de Maaker discusses stereotypical narratives of 'isolated communities' like the North Sentinels in De Telegraaf. He calls for a nuanced view by addressing the cultural, ethical, geopolitical and health dimensions behind their isolation.

Groundbreaking global survey to uncover public perceptions of viking warriors

Learn how the daily Attari-Wagah border ceremony continues despite political tensions between India and Pakistan. Anthropologist Radhika Gupta offers insights into the complex historical and cultural relationship between these two nations in this recent NOS article.

In this podcast episode of Beyond Japan, Oliver Moxham and Andrew Littlejohn explore how disaster heritage fosters debate around the relationship between humans and their environments.

Concrete pillars without a roof, windows without glass, storeys without walls. It’s clearly evident that the South Cluster is being dismantled. Take a look at the photos!

The Hortus Botanicus is celebrating its 425-year anniversary this year. It’s the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, but how did it come into existence and what kind of research takes place there?

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (RMO) was due to open its doors to the small photography exhibit Frank Scholten: Archaeology and Tourism in the ‘Holy Land’ in April. Since the organisers, Leiden University and the RMO, have had to temporarily close, researchers Karène Sanchez and Sary Zananiri would like…

Understanding what our buildings and cities are made of is an important step in making them more sustainable. Industrial ecologist Tomer Fishman (CML) has received an ERC Starting Grant to map the construction materials used in buildings in the Global South. 'Without the data, you can't formulate po…

The opening and inauguration of the Visitors Centre, and the visitors trail on the site, are an important result of the Tell Balata Archaeological Park project that is jointly being implemented by the Palestinian Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, the Faculty of Archaeology of the University…

The role of material culture in early colonial encounters in the Caribbean

The Trio, a people living in Suriname and Brazil, are ‘masters of creation’. Their immense knowledge of nature and materials enables them to live in the jungle. Archaeologist Jimmy Mans follows the Trio.

As terrorism scholars, we are intrigued by those who engage in violence. We study their motivations, tactics, ideology, organisational structures, and pathways to (de-)mobilisation, hoping to better understand terrorism and how we can counter it. Far less attention is paid to what happens after an attack…

How was the Scholarly Self cultivated in professorial families of the humanities, in German-speaking Europe between 1860 and 1930?

To safeguard the quality of research within Leiden University, a committee of external experts evaluates the University’s institutes once every six years according to the Standard Evaluation Protocol which is drawn up by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), The Royal Netherlands…

What is effective viewing behavior for foreign language learners and how can teachers effectively train language learners to apply effective viewing strategies that will maximize their learning when viewing subtitled materials?

The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) of Leiden University and Art Institute West Den Haag are pleased to announce their close collaboration in the second season of the public series In the Making. This series, dedicated to the practice of research in the arts, will consist of seven public…

Career prospects are very important these days. The programme European and International Human Rights law provides you knowledge in human rights settings.

Searching for ways to delay the need for a transplant and trying to build kidneys to order.

Somatic symptoms, such as pain, itch, and fatigue have been shown to have a bidirectional relationship with mental symptoms. Although acute somatic symptoms serve some adaptive properties, chronic symptoms can instead lead to interference in daily activities and lower quality of life.

Composer Paul Craenen (1972) is actually a pianist, but as part of his PhD ceremony, he performed a composition on PVC pipes. Craenen studies the position and role of the body in music. ‘I am interested in what precedes the resulting sound’.

This project, executed by Marieke Hendriksen MA MRes, aims at an analysis of how the early modern anatomical collections of Leiden University were rooted in ideals of perfection in different fields of knowledge and expertise.

The Food citizens? team has included two post-docs, three Ph.D. candidates and two research assistants working with the Principal Investigator. The Winter School involved nine Masters and Ph.D. candidates from the universities of Bologna, Gothenburg, Kaunas, Leiden, Louvain, Tromsø, Turin and Utrech…

The INTERACT project strive to unlock the enormous biotechnological potential of microbes, leading to sustainable crop productions systems.

Subproject of

A retrospective impact assessment of human and environmental resource usage in Late Bronze Age Mycenaean Monumental Architecture, Greece

AI:Liner develops cutting-edge digital solutions for sewer asset management while ensuring responsible AI adoption through comprehensive social science research and ethical frameworks.

Leiden has a long history in the treatment of blood cell cancer. Research to find better therapies never stands still. One of the potential treatments currently being worked on is a ‘living medicine’.

The main research objective is to map the cities of Roman Asia Minor in terms of location, size, urban amenities and juridical status, with the specific aim to understand the reasons how this urban settlement pattern arose.

Learning analytics tracks students’ online learning activities in order to support their learning. But what if most of their learning takes place offline, out of sight of digital eyes?

Management of Impacts on Biodiversity: What are the effects of light pollution from cities and bridges and noise pollution from passing vessels and nearby road traffic on migratory fish passage and spawning in rivers?

The role of transnational, non-institutional networks in the opening up of British transatlantic trade at the end of the 17th/beginning of the 18th century

This project seeks to integrate scientific research and practical knowledge in the study of the mechanisms that make dialogue an effective tool for communication, teaching, and thinking.

Leiden is easily accessible by public transport. The city is ideally situated just a stone's throw from major cities like The Hague and Amsterdam. For those travelling to Leiden by plane, we are pleased to announce that KLM offers discounts for Speech Prosody attendees.

The refurbished P.J. Veth Building - the first completed sub-project in the Humanities Campus project - was officially opened in the summer of 2017. The Faculty of Humanities moved in straight away. . The building was meticulously transformed into a modern teaching building with attractive areas for…