The Netherlands-Flemish Institute is offering an internship in Cairo from March 2018 onwards. If you are interested please apply before February 15, 2018. (See the details in Dutch only)

Since August 2017, dr. Sarah Schrader is working at the Faculty of Archaeology in the department of Archaeological Sciences. Her expertise is human osteology with a specific focus on the bio-archaeological reconstruction of daily activities. Recently she took over the management of the Osteoarchaeology…

Universe Awareness is one of fifteen projects chosen by WISE for providing compelling and innovative solutions to today’s most pressing challenges in education.

Ever since its foundation, Leiden University has turned its gaze outwards to other cultures, languages and forms of academic practice. It is only natural, therefore, that we as a university have four institutes abroad: the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW)…

If you had something important to write down in ancient times, you would usually write in Greek in the eastern Mediterranean. University lecturer Joanne Stolk has been awarded an ERC grant to explore the kinds of spelling mistakes that were made in these scripts. And, more importantly, what improvements…

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute is offering an internship in Cairo from January 2019 onwards. If you are interested please apply before 20 December, 2018. (See the details in Dutch only)

Prof. dr. Iain Gardner (University of Sydney) will be a visiting scholar at Leiden University Centre for the study of Religion (LUCSoR) in September-November 2015

On 8 December, on the occasion of her 65th birthday, Cisca Hoogendijk was surprised with a festive bundle of 56 text editions by friends and colleagues, edited by her former students Dr Joanne Vera Stolk and Guus A.J.C. van Loon, MA.

A message from our director

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.

NVIC is pleased to welcome Christine Kamel as our new receptionist. Christine will briefly introduce herself: "My name is Christine Kamel. I live in Cairo, Egypt. I studied Pharmacy at an Egyptian University (Ain Shams), class 2010. I worked as a Research & Development Pharmacist in a Pharmaceutical…

Professor Petra Sijpesteijn has been elected as an International Fellow of the British Academy, a prestigious recognition that highlights her exceptional contributions to the study of early Islamic history.

We are thrilled to introduce our new PhD student: Andrés Martín García de la Cruz

We are happy to introduce our new Assistant Director for Egyptology & Archaeology: Dr Ariel Singer

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…

Eleven talented Leiden researchers with several years of research experience have been awarded a Vidi subsidy to set up or expand their own line of research. One of them is LIAS researcher Lara Weiss.

International conference “Bodies of Knowledge: Arabic Language, Egyptian Labor, and Communities of Practice in the History of Archaeology & Egyptology” 19-21 November 2024

Mattias Brand’s dissertation, The Manichaeans of Kellis: Religion, Community, and Everyday Life (Leiden, 2019) has been selected for one of the five prestigious Praemium Erasmianum Dissertation Awards 2021.

Starting 1 January 2024, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran have officially joined the BRICS trade bloc, as confirmed by South Africa's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor.

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

We are happy to announce that the following missions have been approved by the Ministry of Antiquities, pending final security confirmations:

Between the early thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries CE, the Sultanate of Cairo affected the balances of power elites across and beyond the regions of Egypt, Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. Modern historiography has for a long time been determined by the idea of this sultanate as a highly…

Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim World

The Leiden Political Economy Group (L-PEG) is a multi-disciplinary network of scholars with a research interest in (comparative / global) political economy based at Leiden University. Our members belong to various institutes and faculties across Leiden University, and from other universities across…

The NVIC has published a series of scholarly publications in Arabic and several European languages.

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

The people who lived in Saqqara, City of the Dead in Egypt, died thousands of years ago, but they are not all that different from us. This is what a study by the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, The Netherlands concludes. If you wanted to prove that you had good taste in ancient Egypt then…

Lucia Langerak was awarded a Master’s degree in Egyptology with cum laude honours in 2018. Her bachelor’s degree was also with cum laude honours. ‘I’m an exceptional Egyptologist, if only because I’ve never been to Egypt.’ She is now the coordinator of the Access & Support Platform at the University…

In a creative assignment as a part of the bachelor's course Visual Culture, students explored the impact and complexity of visual culture by means of visual culture. The resulting artworks were of such a high quality that it was decided to present these in an exhibition.

Globalisation means becoming globalised, a process in which material culture plays a crucial role. This is what Miguel John Versluys, the new Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology, teaches. He bases his teaching on research into the origin and growth of the Roman Empire from the 3rd…

Marjam Peters has just started her four-month internship at NVIC. She also works on developing a research on gender and sexuality in Cairo. Read more..

Coming semester Karen Vet will be joining our team as the new intern. She has a BA in Middle Eastern Studies from Leiden University, specializing in Arabic language and culture.

‘From the ground up’: The politics of burial and memory in the early Islamic world

From February until April 2021, GTGC hosted an online PhD Winter School together with the University of Padova (Italy) and the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil) on “Sustainable Glocal Futures: Knowledge, Democracy and Global Communications".

A message from our director

Miguel John Versluys (1971) has been appointed Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Studies at the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden.

Over 200 people paid their first visit to the new Middle Eastern Library on a special open evening. As well as exploring the library, they got to see exhibitions, speed lectures and premieres about Leiden University’s Middle Eastern collections.

On Friday 16 February 2024, Rudolf E. de Jong passed away unexpectedly in Cairo. Since 2012, he was the director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), which he skillfully managed for 12 years. He was laid to rest in Amsterdam on 27 February. Rudolf was 65.

In July 2022 our alumnus Samatar Botan received the news that he had received the NWO Mosaic 2.0 grant. This grant enables him to start a PhD research at our Faculty on the ancient Aksumite Empire, a topic that is close to his heart. We speak with him about his ambitions and drive. ‘I want to know more…

Dr. Miguel John Versluys (Archaeology) has been awarded a prestigious Vici grant for his project:

Five questions for James Shires, assistant professor at ISGA, about his new book, The Politics of Cybersecurity in the Middle East. The book is available to order now.