Leiden and The Hague are home to many museums with large numbers of artefacts and archives. Leiden University also and the Leiden University Library also house special collections. Museums, Collections & Society stimulates research and education and raises ethical questions regarding the collections’…

The purpose of the initiative is to establish Central Asian Studies at Leiden University. Central Asia is a region with fluid borders stretching into present-day Afghanistan, Russia, China, Mongolia, Iran and the Caucasus; a premodern highway of global interaction and today increasingly important as…

The Faculty of Archaeology ranks as the best on continental Europe and is in the top ten of the world. Our master’s degree in archaeology offers the most diverse programme of its type in the Netherlands.

The Heritage Quest project begins on Monday 6 April. Heritage Quest is the first large-scale citizen science archaeology project in the Netherlands: anyone can help find archaeological remains at Utrechtse Heuvelrug, a heavily forested region in the Netherlands. Citizens can thus get involved in scientific…

University lecturer Aya Ezawa has received a Certificate of Commendation from the Japanese Embassy in the Netherlands for her efforts to promote reconciliation between the Netherlands and Japan, in particular by supporting Japanese-Indonesian war children. As a member of the Foundation for War Victims…

A new student-curated exhibition in the F1-corridor of the Van Steenis building brings history to life through remarkable finds from the Amsterdam, a merchant vessel of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) that met an untimely end in 1749. 'The story of the Amsterdam is truly unique, especially considering…

The Museums, Collections & Society (MCS) group consists of staff members, all of whom have a strong link to the Museums and Collections programme of the Faculty of Humanities and the Heritage and Museum programme of the Faculty of Archaeology.

What is the role of memory in contemporary music?

Open up a world of opportunities with your master's degree in Archaeology from Leiden University!

Archaeology in Leiden encompasses the study of societies, cultures, and human behaviour from the past, aiming to reconstruct and revive them. With our mix of education and research you lay a strong foundation for an international career in archaeology or heritage management.

The one-year master's programme Global Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s MA in Asian Studies, allows you to create a tailor-made programme by choosing from a broad range of thematic, disciplinary or regional electives.

What are the immediate and lasting effects of the colonial encounters on indigenous Caribbean cultures and societies and what were the intercultural dynamics that took place during the colonisation processes? How can the study of indigenous Caribbean histories contribute to a more sophisticated awareness…

As museums face more scrutiny and are being demanded to decolonize, there are opportunities for Dominican museums to adopt a critical perspective and turn their collections and exhibitions into connections to our cultural past, present, and future.

Links to related organisations, institutes, journals and archives.

Curso de lengua mixteca (variante de Ñuu Ndeya)

The aim of this research is the systematic analysis of the wisdom coined by Nahua people of Mexico, based on the historical sources and archaeological evidence, but also in the knowledge developed by contemporary indigenous communities and the contributions of indigenous scholars.

Linking botanical collections, peoples, and illustrations in seventeenth century Dutch Brazil

This book presents the transcriptions and annotated translations of fifteen key historical documents concerning the Tapuia indigenous people written just before and during the Dutch occupation of northeastern Brazil.

This work analyzes ritual practices and knowledge related to the Mesoamerican calendar with the aim of contributing to the understanding of the use and conceptualization of this calendar system in the contemporary K’iche’ community of Momostenango, in the Highlands of Guatemala.

Both on a personal and institutional level, the staff of Leiden CADS collaborates with:

Context and contents of the Izcatqui manuscript in the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam

On 27 May 2021, Hirad Abtahi defended his thesis 'Adjudicating Attacks Targeting Culture'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof.dr. C. Stahn.

Crafting Futures through Cheese-Making in Val Taleggio (Northern Italy) is written by Cristina Grasseni and is published in Gastronomica.

We are experts in the fields of languages, cultures, history, arts, societies and philosophy. Together we cover almost all continents and time periods. Knowledge of these disciplines contributes to a humane, safe and sustainable world.

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists.

The project entails research by international comparison into the effects of commercialisation in heritage management on the academic relevance and quality of the results of work that is essentially applied research. The research is carried out by Prof. dr. W.J.H. Willems and dr. M.H. van den Dries…

With the What's Next? series we hope to inspire current Creative Intelligence & Technology MSc students, show the variety of paths taken after the studies, and bring together alumni. Editions of the series are generally organized around a particular theme by Creative Intelligence & Technology MSc students…

The P.J. Cosijn Research Fellowship is an initiative to give promising Research MA students of Leiden University with an interest in Anglo-Saxon Studies the opportunity to conduct research on Old English language and literature. The Cosijn Fellowships are part of the ERC-funded project ‘Early Medieval…

For a long time, the painful history of colonial slavery received too little attention. People whose ancestors lived in slavery are now asking critical questions about how we should address that past. Leiden University researchers study the history of colonialism and slavery and their long-term impact…

The project aims at contributing to the safeguarding of Palestinian cultural heritage and the enhancement of economic situation through tourism development, by presenting and managing one of the most important archaeological resources, the archaeological site of Tell Balata.

Maikel Kuijpers was invited to join a session on material rights, resource use, and craftsmanship during the Carnegie Peacebuilding Conversations held in The Hague’s Peace Palace in September. Organised by Major Alliance the session brought together a diverse panel to discuss “The Universal Declaration…

Are predictive archaeological maps a reliable tool to play an important role in the spatial planning? One of the goals of this project was to develop best practices for the production and application of the models.

In his new six-hour series, Africa's Great Civilizations, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes a new look at the history of Africa, from the birth of humankind to the dawn of the 20th century. One of the experts interviewed in the programme is our own dr. Sada Mire.

On 7 June, the National Museum of Antiquities opened a mini exhibition 'Scanning for Syria'. The exhibition shows how Leiden archaeologists and Delft technical specialists make reconstructions of 3000-year-old Assyrian clay tablets. The originals, stored in museum depots in Raqqa (Syria), have been…

Webinar

The Faculty of Archaeology has three departments:

Space is becoming increasingly busier due to the launching of satellites and tourists. But no binding international agreements have been made since 1979. This is problematic, warns space lawyer Tanja Masson-Zwaan. ‘Everyone’s putting their own interests first.’

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

The project Advancing The European Multilingual Experience (AThEME) studied multilingualism in Europe by incorporating and combining linguistic, cognitive and sociological perspectives.

A study concerning the collective memory in the region of the Bene lo Ya/ Ene lo I'ya, Sierra Norte, Oaxaca.

A post-colonial approach to the concept of time in the past and present Maya culture

What triggers archaeology in you? Over 300 people show their answer in the travelling, pop-up exhibition ‘Archaeology&ME’, which can be visited at Leiden Central station on May 5th and 6th 2018.

Luc Amkreutz, curator of prehistory at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and professor of Public Archaeology at Leiden University, has a mission: to make the past accessible and relevant to a broad audience. He is the new Eugène Dubois Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering…