The end of January arrived together with welcome guests from Saxion University of Applied Sciences. As a part of their two-day-long visit to South Holland, almost 100 Saxion archaeology students visited our Faculty.

If you do research on Leidens Ontzet in Leiden, you can count on a lot of interest. But Leiden Kennisstad interns Marieke Nolten and Alexander Nuijten had not expected there would be quite so much interest. They concluded a year of research with the presentation of a scientific paper.

Almost a hundred students and researchers can study in Leiden or go from Leiden to another university abroad as part of an exchange programme. Fourteen exchange projects have been awarded a subsidy from the EU's Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility programme.

Archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers participated in the development of the boardgame Epoch: Early Inventors. “This game is inspired by the major innovation that happened in prehistoric times. A topic that has my interest and that I teach here in Leiden.

With RoMeincraft, you get to play the popular computer game Minecraft while learning about the ancient Romans. RoMeincraft, the project of the VALUE Foundation founded by (at the time) archaeologists from Leiden University, is at the interface between knowledge about the past and computer games.

In July 2023, Leiden University conducted another phase of its ongoing archaeological collaboration with the Kalinago Territory in the Caribbean island of Dominica. Activities focused on mapping and assessing coastal sites impacted by climate stressors, undertaking knowledge-exchange sessions, and co-creating…

A diverse team of Leiden archaeologists applied for, and was awarded, the KNAW ‘Appreciated!’ grant, meant to further their science communication endeavours. We speak with Dr Maikel Kuijpers, who is the main contact person of the application.

When you want to analyse big quantities of archaeological data, you run into the issue that searching through excavation reports is extremely time-consuming. If only there existed a search engine specifically focused on querying these reports… But wait, work on an archaeological search engine focused…

Three young lecturers are to receive a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant of 50,000 euros. The grant will allow each of them to implement an innovation project in their teaching.

The Council of the Academia Europaea (AE) has announced prof.dr. Corinne Hofman as one of the new Academy members. Corinne Hofman, Dean of the Faculty of Archaeology is one of a number of eminent international scholars from across the continent of Europe who were invited to accept membership in 2016,…

Starting September 2022, Foteini Tsigoni is tasked by the Faculty of Archaeology to bring the different nationalities within the faculty community together. Herself an international student, she experienced culture shock wile adapting to the Dutch way of life, and is committed to help out new and current…

With the start of June, the annual Leiden Archaeology Field School has begun. Like last year, the Field School takes place in Oss. Every week, a group of 25 first year students gets to learn the ins and outs of a professional excavation.

On Saturday, May 4, Dr. Verena Meyer delivered opening remarks at the International Webinar 'Santri, Literacy, and Indonesia', organized by the Bali Santri Literacy Community (Sanubari) Nurul Ikhlas Islamic Boarding School in Jembrana, Bali, Indonesia.

The documentary invites us to consider the question of what we consider valuable knowledge. “We need to realise that doing and thinking are intertwined in ways we did not comprehend before” argues Maikel Kuijpers, archaeologist and the producer of the documentary. “This will have consequences for the…

Over 600 manuscripts and early prints have been made digitally available by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) via the Europeana platform. In the project 'The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA), seven European heritage institutions added 30,000 digitised medieval items to Europeana’s database…

The Faculty of Humanities’ On-Campus Master’s Experience Day was a pleasantly busy event. The information sessions and corresponding information market went down well with interested undergraduates.

How to create an unforgettable astronomy experience for tourists? And how to create fun activities that also have scientific and educational value? The Astronomy & Society Group at Leiden Observatory has translated a manual that answers those questions. The Observatory’s public engagement team hopes…

Large-scale forest fires started by prehistoric hunter-gatherers are probably the reason why Europe is not more densely forested. This is the finding of an international team, including climate researcher Professor Jed Kaplan of the University of Lausanne and archaeologist Professor Jan Kolen of Leiden…

In the week of 14 to 18 January the Lorentz workshop 'Intersecting Worlds. The Interplay of Cultures and Technology' took place at the Lorentz Center in Leiden. Attracting many scholars from across the world, the workshop explored the transformations and responses of indigenous societies around the…

The Mesoamerican research group 'Time in Intercultural Context: the indigenous calendars of Mexico and Guatemala' funded by the ERC and directed by prof. dr. Maarten Jansen, met up in Mexico from the 13th until the 23rd of February for a field seminar in the states of Tlaxcala and Hidalgo.

The international travelling exhibition Caribbean Ties will open at Museon in The Hague on Saturday 25 May. It tells the untold story of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and their lives before, during and after European colonisation. Caribbean Ties will be on show simultaneously in 11 countries…

Northern Yemen; a highland region often in the news as the center of the Houthi regime, has a political, social, and intellectual history spanning more than a millennium. This exhibition showcases some of the findings of the Early Modern State Development in Yemen project, based at Leiden University,…

After 7.5 years, Jan Kolen is stepping down as Dean of the Faculty of Archaeology. For him, it does not feel like a dramatic moment. ‘It is part of the role: you pass the baton on to someone else.’ He adds with a smile: ‘And I will remain connected to the faculty, so it is not really a farewell.’

Ethics in Caribbean Archaeology, a new open access volume edited by Felicia Fricke, Eduardo Herrera Malatesta, and Maaike de Waal, is already generating significant interest across the region and beyond.

In August 2022 we welcome our new colleague Dr Letty ten Harkel as Assistant Professor in Roman and Post-Roman Archaeology. For the past ten years she has built up an impressive track record in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford. Read the interview about her background and research…

Wednesday 18 January 2017, a university-wide meeting was organized on the upcoming alterations with regard to the role and tasks of Study Program Committees (Opleidingscommissies; OCs) within Leiden University.

If male budgerigars can successfully open a puzzle box with food, they become more attractive to females. Biologist Carel ten Cate and Chinese colleagues published experimental evidence for this in a paper in Science on 11 January. Various Dutch and international media wrote about the paper.

The Ancient Worlds Network brings together staff and graduate students in LIAS working on the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

Interested in Area Studies? Then Leiden is the place to be! Join our Online Area Studies Week from 2-5 June to find out more. From Africa to Brasil and from Korea to Russia, Leiden covers all areas and fields, both in language, literature, history, politics and socio-economics. Join our live Q&As!

Lecture, Herta Mohr Lecture

Nadine Akkerman's book Invisible Agents is the very first study to analyse the role of early modern women spies. The book foregrounds the agency of early-modern women, offering a corrective to the gender bias implicit in modern historiography.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

Lecture

Visual Ethnography graduate Ildikó Plájás received the Best documentary award in the student competition at the international Astra Film Festival in Romania.

PhD candidate Alex Brandsen, working in the Digital Archaeology research group has recently received a grant from the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities. This grant will be used to further develop and improve AGNES, the search engine for excavation reports that Brandsen is building.

NVIC welcomes Dr. Stefanie Van de Peer of Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh as a guest researcher.

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.

The subsidy funds new research into the: Economies of Destruction. The emergence of metalwork deposition during the Bronze Age in Northwest Europe, c. 2300-1500 BC.

Sandrine Gallois, a post-doctoral research in the HARVEST project, was awarded second place in the prestigious L'Óreal UNESCO For Women In Science Rising Talent prize. Sandrine, along with her supervisor Amanda Henry and collaborator Tinde van Andel attended the awards ceremony at the Koninklijke Hollandsche…

From 4 November until 9 November 2018, the Netherlands Embassy in Cairo organized a training in Museology and Site Management in close cooperation with the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and the Reinwardt Academy (Amsterdam), with great contributions of…

Museum Jan Cunen in Oss presents the very first retrospective exhibition of the richest graves from the early Iron Age (800-500 BC), including the one of the iconic Lord of Oss. Leiden archaeologist Richard Jansen was guest curator and the exhibition tells the story of the funeral rituals of the local…

In 1974 Professor Modderman (founder of the Institute for Prehistory Leiden; predecessor of the present Faculty of Archaeology) executed a small excavation in the city of Oss. The Middle Iron Age cemetery, built over by Roman Period farmhouses, proved to be the start of a unique archaeological regional…

The Faculty of Archaeology is proud to present the special edition in honor of our 25th anniversary. In 15 pages, the Dutch-language special gives an overview of the wide variety of research, fieldwork projects, and laboratories the Faculty hosts. Aimed at the general public, the special will be handed…

The Netherlands Organisation of Scientic Research (NWO) has granted the VIDI application of Dr. Miguel John Versluys for the research of Cultural innovation in a globalising society: Egypt in the Roman world.

In October, Sophie Starrenburg was elected as a member of the Coordinating Committee of the ESIL Interest Group on the International Law of Culture. She will work alongside Giovanni Carlo Bruno (Italian National Research Council), Andrzej Jakubowski (Polish Academy of Studies), and Lucas Lixinski (University…

In the media, we hear a lot of worrying news from Africa: refugees, attacks, Ebola, starvation, corruption... But Africa is much more than that: it is a continent in transition, with developments occurring at breakneck speed. African Studies scholars from different academic disciplines in Leiden conduct…

The faculty ranks as the best in The Netherlands for the subject Archaeology. Among European institutions we rank 5th.

The problem of unequal sports participation will only be addressed if sexism and racism in recreational sports and exercise are taken seriously. That's what cultural anthropologists Jasmijn Rana (Leiden University) and Kathrine van den Bogert (Utrecht University) write in an opinion piece in the Dutch…

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