Leiden is to have a new language museum in 2015, a public institute focusing on language in all its facets and where science and social developments come together for a broad public. It won't be in a building, but at different places in the city. Dynamic, contemporary, flexible and affordable. The details…

Leiden University opened its doors on Leiden Museum Night, with a whole host of things to see and do at the Academy Building, Hortus botanicus and Old Observatory. Take a look at the photos and see.

Duizenden metaalvondsten die door detectorzoeker wijlen Herman Zomerdijk zijn gedaan in de regio Kennemerland schetsen een uniek beeld van Noord-Holland door de eeuwen heen. Hij zocht en verzamelde decennialang historische metalen objecten in Noord-Holland en bouwde zo een unieke metaalcollectie op.

The Patriot behind the pot tells the story of pottery, people and politics in the Netherlands during a time of great revolutions -revolutions both in a political and industrial sense.

Ten Leiden museums and heritage institutions have curated the online exhibition ‘Carel’s Universe’. They selected objects from their collections that symbolise retiring Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and the research in Leiden. With direct references, playful associations and the odd nod and wink.

Most people would not even consider it, starting a PhD at the age of 62. However, for the former Teylers Museum curator Bert Sliggers it was like a dream that came true: ‘The opportunity I was given felt like a gift, it brought me and Teylers Museum a lot.’

This work focuses on the interpretation of the archaeological remains of the Mixtec culture in Southern Mexico on the basis of the knowledge, perceptions, economy and worldview of contemporary descendant communities.

The ninth Museum Night in Leiden will take place on Friday 19 May 2017. This year's theme will be 'About time'. Nine museums are taking part and the city centre will be brightly lit.

The department of World Archaeology combines research and education about regions all over the world, from Human Origins to the Middle Ages, and from Europe, to Asia, Africa and the America’s. That broad range in time and space makes the department a dynamic pluriform community with many different approaches,…

The strangest things come out at night. This is the motto of the Leiden Museum Night due to take place on 28 May. Leiden University is once again playing a key part.

The past, present, and future for local people and archaeologists in Sudanese Nubia

Prehistory of Amazonia seen from the kitchen

In this Yearbook you will find some fascinating examples of what was done in 2021, not only by ourselves, but also by our international colleagues.

Historians and experts in American studies from Leiden University are holding an online international conference about the arrival of the Pilgrims in America and the consequences for the indigenous societies. We asked four questions to two of its organisers, American Studies expert Joke Kardux and historian…

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.

Dit proefschrift beschrijft een collectie aan alternatieve strategieën voor het begrijpen, ontwerpen en toepassen van lipide nanosystemen, waarin de rol van de bio-nano interacties centraal staan. In het bijzonder wordt gekeken naar de interactie van RNA-lipide nanosystemen, bekend van de toepassing…

A rejuvenated Naturalis opens its doors to the public on Saturday 31 August. Many researchers from Leiden University also work at the Naturalis research centre. Their workplace has also undergone a major facelift, and museum visitors can now watch their every move.

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

One of the highlights during the fieldwork in Schoningen lead by Prof. dr. Thijs van Kolfschoten in 2013 was the opening of the museum and research center paläon on June 24. To the realisation of the museum, the Faculty of Archaeology made ​​a significant contribution. Many of the results of the research…

North, Middle and South America together constitute the single largest area in World Archaeology that is taught as a single focus. It is also the only major world area that saw societies develop from hunter-gatherers to early empires entirely independent from developments in Eurasia & Africa. It is,…

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

How has interreligious encounter in Ogbómòsó created multiple religious belongings and identities among individuals and groups?

The ‘Locke drawings’ collection and the representation of Brazilian native peoples in global perspective

ACPA alumna Dr. Itandehui Jansen is currently working on a new experimental film. The project researches sustainable filmmaking approaches, while exploring Indigenous Futurisms through film practice. The project is a continuation of Jansen’s research for the AHRC scoping project Sustainable Materials…

On Tuesday 7 December, Wouter Kalf gave a lecture on how All Knowlegde starts with intuïtions for the Studium Generalis series co-hosted by the Museum de Lakenhal. The lecture was in Dutch.

Learn about current approaches and ethical issues in heritage management and experience some of these in daily practice.

The role of material culture in early colonial encounters in the Caribbean

The artefacts that still remain from the traditional culture of the indigenous Yukon, Canada, are spread over dozens of museums throughout the world. Yukon Indian Ukjese van Kampen carried out research to bring this culture to light. This is the subject of his dissertation entitled ‘The history of Yukon…

The Human Origins group at Leiden University studies the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, from the earliest stone tools in East Africa, more than three million years old, to the origin of sedentary societies towards the end of the last ice age.

Book by Dr. Mariana Françozo resulting from her research into the collection of count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, governor of the Dutch colony in Northeastern Brazil between 1637 and 1644.

On Saturday October 16, the special exhibition ‘Shared Sky: Canvases of the Universe’ opens in the Old Observatory in Leiden. The exhibit takes a cultural look at the starry sky by Aboriginal Australian and South African artists, and features colorful artwork that explores how these Indigenous cultures…

What socio-cultural transformations did indigenous communities in the Lesser Antilles undergo from the late precolonial to the early colonial period in response to Amerindian­ European-African cultural encounters? How did Amerindian populations realign themselves in response to the colonisation…

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…

This project investigates diversifying and democratizing heritage through practices of “home-making”. We propose to research ‘home-making’ as a non-binary practice of combining memories of roots and routes, dwelling in the present, and desires for the future.

Natalia Grincheva (2020). Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-8153-6999-8, 164 pp., £27.99 (paperback).

The one-year master's in History, Arts and Culture, a specialisation of Leiden University’s MA in Asian Studies, allows you to focus on one or more countries or regions of pre-modern, modern or contemporary Asia.

Study Archaeology at Leiden University. Learn about a full range of theoretical, analytical and field methods from some of the world's leading archaeological researchers.

Descolonización, continuidad cultural y re-apropiación de los códices mixtecos en el Pueblo de la Lluvia

An Introduction and Field Guide, Second and Revised Edition (15 December 2014)

On a thursdaymorning our students were guided around a new exhibition in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. This exhibition displayed photographs and documents from the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Western Arabian Peninsula.

The exhibition Leiden celebrates – 450 years of parades at Museum De Lakenhal shows how parades and society have changed through the centuries. Alumnus and historian Danielle van Goethem worked on the exhibition. She gives a preview.