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.

Sometimes fascination can lead to in-depth research. Such is the case with Wahyu Widodo, who came across the Islamic Walikutuban ritual in Java in 2019, on which he subsequently wrote his PhD dissertation. Widodo: ‘Besides community, it also breeds political loyalty’

The theme of the Heritage Open Days Leiden on 10 and 11 September is sustainability. At four University locations guides will talk about the history of the buildings and how they have been renovated. And there is a first: tours in sign language.

1) How natural cycles and activities are interconnected for building the time in one community? 2) What perceptions of Ñuu Dzaui peoples about their landscape can be connected with precolonial times?

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

The aim of ANCIENT CHARM was to develop neutron-imaging techniques and the associated equipment, and help establish neutron imaging as a mainstream archaeological analytical technique. In particular, one of the goals was a new imaging technique which called neutron resonant capture imaging combined…

Last month (February 5-8 2024), the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, hosted a workshop entitled ‘Caribbean World Heritage Sites in the light of today’s global challenges: the case of Historic Bridgetown and Its Garrison’.

Dr. Katharine MacDonald (Faculty of Archaeology) sketches the background to a recent paper in Science Advances, co-authored by her and other members of the Liveable Planet team.

The excavation of three Bronze Age barrows and surrounding landscape at Apeldoorn-Wieselseweg

Archives were a common target during the Second World War, and hundreds suffered damages. Among these archival losses, the losses to medieval manuscript collections stand out.

This proposal aims at the construction of a comprehensive and authoritative scientific grammar for Dutch and Frisian in the form of a virtual language institute: het Taalportaal/the Language Portal.

On the 26th of May Pao-Yi Yang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

An Honours Class about the ostensibly unrecognisable worlds of insular Southeast Asia teaches students a fundamental piece of wisdom:

An Iron Age skull, a unicorn for cleaning your ear and thousands of beer jugs. Alumnus and archaeologist Chris Muysson has made remarkable discoveries at the Binnenhof government complex in The Hague. ‘Each puzzle piece tells us more about its history.’

Alumna Lisa Koolhoven is the granddaughter of a Rotterdam woman who experienced the ‘forgotten bombing’ of the city on 31 March 1943. Her friend Kristen Hayford has an American grandfather who served in the Air Force during the Second World War. In their podcast ‘Beb & Bob| Collateral Damage ’, they…

Lecture, Book presentation

World Heritage status comes at a cost to the local population’s human rights. PhD Candidate Sophie Starrenburg explains the drawbacks of poetic terms such as ‘the cultural heritage of mankind’.

That corn was highly important in the Maya culture is something that Genner Llanes Ortiz, himself a Maya from the Mexican province of Yucatan, has always known, right from his childhood. But just how important the role of corn is in the collective memory of his people, is one of the subjects of his…

Lecture

A platform to research memory and culture in the Muslim world. This programme explores the ways modern memory studies methodologies can be applied to pre-modern Muslim societies to reveal the uses of the past and senses of tradition in diverse contexts of Muslim thought.

The Faculty of Archaeology proudly presents the research brochure Perspectives on the Past, featuring passionate, dedicated researchers introducing a dazzling scala of research topics: from present-day traditional knowledge in Africa to the power of glue in Palaeolithic Europe. In addition to these…

Just behind the entry gate of Angkor Wat, known as Gopura 4 West, through which every year millions of tourists enter the most iconic temple of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, ground-penetrating radar surveys revealed a set of masonry structures: six ‘tower’ bases in geometrical alignment, possibly…

Lecture, Herta Mohr Lecture

Leiden University is demolishing a number of old laboratories of the Faculty of Science in a sustainable way. The Dutch Green Building Council, an organisation that seeks to ensure sustainable construction and demolition, awarded this approach four stars.

Hifadhi ya Dijiti ya Ustadh Mau

Leiden University and China import partner.

Who is Economic Man? Every economic paradigm presupposes an anthropology, a theory of human nature. This project explores the anthropologies presupposed and produced by ancient Greek economic texts, and the specific knowledge forms that shape these anthropologies.

On 2 May, Sophie Starrenburg defended the thesis 'Striking a balance between local and global interests: communities and cultural heritage protection in public international law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Nico Schrijver and Yvonne Donders.

In Renaissance Florence, humanists wrote Latin poems fashioning their city as the new Rome, and members of the Medici family as Roman rulers. How can we explain this practice?

The Department of Archaeological Heritage and Society focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in society, and how heritage conceived broadly can contribute to improving quality of life.

Heritage expert Monique van den Dries has a long history with our Faculty. She did her studies and PhD in Leiden, and before returning to academia in 2008, she worked in heritage management for nearly 15 years. This has, given her a unique insight in the world outside of academia. ‘I want to literally…

‘Fernweh: Crossing borders and connecting people in archaeological heritage management ’

On Sunday August 19, the National Geographic channel programme 'Drain the Oceans' will focus on Martijn Manders' excavation of the Dutch VOC ship De Rooswijk.

On Sunday September 2, the Museu Nacional of Brazil was destroyed by fire. It is estimated that 90 percent of the collection is lost. National Geographic interviewed Brazilian heritage expert Mariana de Campos Françozo about the disaster.

Lecture, Book Roundtable

Kick-off Meeting

Getting young people excited about history is quite possible without books. Researchers from Leiden travelled to Morocco to work with schoolchildren on reconstructing cultural heritage in the popular video game Minecraft. The result: one virtual 14th-century city gate – and 20 teens with a greater appreciation…

Mission Director: Dr. Carina van den Hoven

The Wadi al Jizzi Archaeological Project is a systematic and long term archaeological surface survey project, investigating the rich archaeological heritage of the Wadi al Jizzi region (Oman) from the Paleolithic until the early Modern period.

This research hopes to contribute to social awareness of the consequences of colonialism for Indigenous Peoples, to the deconstruction of still existing colonial and discriminatory notions and to a better appreciation of Indigenous art and thought.

Workshop