The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

Systematic investigations into religious precepts, worldly rules of law and legal practices in the Muslim world show clearly how these societies deal with justice and injustice. Sharia, the Islamic ‘legal system’, plays an important role in this context.

Our library contains around 23,000 books, journals and historical documents under the care of a specialized librarian.

Our institutes abroad are instrumental for Leiden’s internationalisation activities.

LIAS has a School of Asian Studies (SAS), a School of Middle-Eastern Studies (SMES) and a School of Religious Studies (LUCSoR). These designations, and the fields within them, remain foundational to our work. At the same time, the academic community benefits from the presence of cross-regional networks…

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history.

Update : March 2020 Directors: Dr. Lara Weiss and Dr. Christian Greco Deputy directors: Dr. Daniel Soliman and Dr. Paolo Del Vesco

The fourth conference of Isis Studies was organised by Liège college and has now been published by Laurent Bricault and Miguel John Versluys.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Assyriology 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 in Egyptology 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 Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme 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.

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 programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Assyriology 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.

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

Recontextualising the Papyri from Roman Soknopaiou Nesos / Dimê (Fayyum, Egypt)

From the mid-19th century until the 1970’s, the Middle East witnessed the presence of various European missionaries who played a fundamental role in the birth and the development of humanitarianism. Since these Christian missionaries were well integrated in the local Middle Eastern societies via their…

NOSTER, the research school for Theology and Religious Studies, organizes a Coptic Course in the fall of 2023. Students can enroll until October 1.

NVIC suffered a great loss by the passing of Dirk Huyge, curator of Prehistoric and Early Dynastic Egypt at the Art & History Museum, Brussels. Dirk Huyge will always be remembered for his role in establishing a systematic approach for rock art research in Egypt. May all the beautiful memories be…

I’m Laurence Peelen and I am the new intern at the NVIC. I just finished my BA Islam Studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen and I wanted to gain some more experience in the MENA region at the start of my Master’s program.

Dr. Miguel John Versluys was awarded the Zenobia Essay Prize during the recent conference Troy: the city, the war, the legend organized by the Zenobia Foundation in the Lutheran church in Amsterdam.

Cisca Hoogendijk received an NWO Internationalisation in the Humanities Grant for the project 'Text in Context: Recontextualising the papyri from Roman Soknopaiou Nesos / Dime (Fayyum, Egypt)'.

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.

Sarah is the latest addition to our team...

The Leiden Faculty of Archaeology is an institution of international renown. Frequently, researchers from other places of learning visit the faculty to broaden and deepen their own expertise. Currently, the Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology is hosting two scholars from Egypt, Samar Abudahab and…

Leiden University archaeologists receive multiple awards for research on interaction between the Greek and Roman world and ‘The East’

Are you interested in ancient Egypt, the rich cultural heritage of Mesopotamia or bliblical Hebrew and Aramaic? Students of all faculties can follow electives of Ancient Near Eastern Studies without prior knowledge or special entry requirements. Archaeology student Annely Arends talks about her expe…

We are very happy to announce that as of 1 March Marleen De Meyer is our new NVIC Director!

Dr Amany Soliman joined the NVIC as a postdoctoral research fellow in October 2017. She is a lecturer of modern history and international relations at the Mediterranean Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University. For her PhD thesis, she examined the nationalist movements in Spain,…

A flake of limestone (ostracon) inscribed with an ancient Egyptian word list of the fifteenth century BC turns out to be the world’s oldest known abecedary. The words have been arranged according to their initial sounds, and the order followed here is one that is still known today. This discovery has…

NVIC is delighted to host Dr. Younous Arbaoui from the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law of the VU University Amsterdam as our NWIB Visiting Professor during three months this Spring.

In its session of 15 April 2024, the Austrian Academy of Sciences elected professor Petra Sijpesteijn as one of its new Corresponding Members.

Arriving at a new workplace has never been as easy as it was in the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo. I’m very grateful for the nice colleagues who helped me in the first few days to settle down in Egypt and start to work in the office. Although I spent the last 3 years on site as a field archaeologist…

We are delighted to welcome Elisabeth Faber as our new intern for the Fall semester 2022.

Our MA student Marie Costers from the University of Antwerp wrote about her experiences as a student at NVIC in Spring 2025!

Dear all,

Considering the ongoing developments surrounding Covid-19 in Egypt and in accordance with Leiden University regulations, we have decided to cancel the Dutch courses for the time being. We will reevaluate the situation in December 2021 the soonest.

Just published:

Applications are invited for a postdoctoral fellowship for up to 6 months, connected to the ERC- funded research project Rethinking Disability at Leiden University, in cooperation with the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo.

Dear friends of the institute,

Luca Bruls is currently doing an internship at NVIC. Besides that she works on an ethnographic account of the museum of Islamic art in Cairo. Read more…

The Leiden Archaeology Social Media Team (LUFASM) proudly presents their second mini-documentary in the series on Leiden Archaeology projects. The Karakorum Rescue Project is run by Marike van Aerde and Abdul Ghani Khan, and is a collaboration between archaeologists in Pakistan and the Netherlands.