On the 17th of June Rea Matsangou successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

Reworking Culture: Relatedness, Rites, and Resources in Garo Hills, North-East India provides intimate insights into the lives of hill farmers and the challenges they face in day-to-day life. Focusing on the ongoing reinterpretation of traditions, or customs, the book critiques the all too often taken-for-granted…

What is the role of local Caribbean individuals and communities in creating and perpetuating archaeological heritage? How has archaeological knowledge been integrated into education plans in different countries?

The archaeological heritage of South America is facing increasing threats due to the expansion of agricultural activities, infrastructure expansion, illegal wood harvesting, and the current fire emergency plaguing the Amazon and other biomes of the continent.

An environmental and palaeo-economic reconstruction.

How did interests outside the scope of the Dutch chartered trading companies influence the career-paths of Dutch colonial governors?

Generally the data from remote sensing surveys - the scanning of the earth by satellite or aircraft in order to obtain information about it - is screened manually in archaeology. However, constant monitoring of the earth's surface causes a huge influx of data of high complexity and high quality. To…

Caribbean archaeological heritage is threatened by natural impacts but also increasingly by economic developments, often resulting from the tourist industry. The continuous construction of specific projects for tourists, accompanied by illegal practices such as looting and sand mining, have major impacts…

What is vegetation structure and composition in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non certified) in comparison to primary forest? What is avian guild diversity in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non…

This handbook provides a resource for those already familiar with some kinds of micro-particles who wish to learn more about others, or for those just starting out in the study of microremains who wish to have a broad understanding about microscopic archaeology.

Researchers using remote sensing technologies have characterized pre-Columbian regularly-shaped earthworks in forests in Central America and the Amazon. In tropical forested mountains in South America, two challenges arise when identifying archaeological sites through remote sensing. Firstly, sites…

The Jordan Times has interviewed Peter Akkermans about the damage done to the Early Islamic archaeological site of Khirbet Al Umari, Jordan.

Apps that can precisely identify shards, coins or heel bones: archaeology has embraced artificial intelligence. Alex Brandsen is working on a search engine that scans vast quantities of text from an archaeological viewpoint.

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. Karel Kuipers and Tullio Abruzzese contributed to the new volume.

Professor of Archaeometry Patrick Degryse analyses archaeological finds using techniques from chemistry, physics and biology. He will give his inaugural lecture on 19 February. He reflects on three interesting propositions from his lecture.

In Leiden University's video series on Leiden and The Hague as student cities, students interview each other at their favorite spots. In the fifth video of this series, archaeology student Julia spoke with Anthropology student Daria in Trianon, on Leiden's cinemas.

This dissertation develops an innovative approach to cultural transformation in the kingdom of Commagene (modern south-east Turkey) during the 1st c. BCE, focusing on a palatial context in the capital Samosata.

Olivier Nieuwenhuijse, project leader of the project Focus Raqqa, was hosted by the NOS Radio 1 news broadcast on February 16, 2017.

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

How did free agents oppose the monopolies held by the VOC and WIC in court?

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

This volume sees the publication of fifty-six early Old Babylonian letters from ca. 1880 BCE. They were found by legendary Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir in 1941 at the site of Tell ed-Dēr, ancient Sippar-Amnānum, in central Iraq.

The goal is to establish an intuitive search and querying service that allows researchers to quickly retrieve the most valuable digital resources, in order to allow them to integrate and synthesise the results into a coherent narrative of the past. The current focus of the project is to implement…

The Caribbean before Columbus is a new synthesis of the region’s insular history. It combines the results of the authors’ 55 years of archaeological research on almost every island in the three archipelagoes with that of their numerous colleagues and collaborators.

HOME will search for a diversity of Palaeolithic shelters during the Late Pleistocene through informed systematic surveys and excavations of archaeological sites in East-Central Europe.

With the departure of Tesse Stek to the Royal Dutch Institute in Rome for three years, Andrzej Antczak will take over the role of Departmental Head for World Archaeology in September 2018. We spoke with him to learn more about his background, ideas, and plans for the future.

Elizabeth Hicks won first runner-up in the Netherlands Institute of the Near East (NINO) MA thesis 2021 competition at the end of January.

Two hundred years ago Caspar Reuvens was appointed as the first professor of archaeology in the Netherlands. He was to lay the basis for both the National Museum of Antiquities and the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University. To mark the occasion, the faculty is organising an anniversary lecture…

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond

The Van Loon project sets out to safeguard the archives of Dutch archaeologist Maurits van Loon (Amsterdam, September 22, 1923 - Montpellier, October 12, 2006) and make them accessible for further study.

Authority and Control in the Countryside looks at the economic, religious, political and cultural instruments that local and regional powers in the late antique to early medieval Mediterranean and Near East used to manage their rural hinterlands.

200 years ago, in 1818, Caspar Reuvens was appointed Professor in Archaeology at Leiden University. This was effectively the start of the academic study of archaeology in the Netherlands. To celebrate this occasion, the faculty organises events related to the future of archaeology throughout the yea…

Dutch archaeologists are making three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of archaeological objects lost in the Syrian civil war.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

Dr Bleda Düring deemed it was time for an archaeological approach on the imperialisation of Assyria. ‘While there are lot of archaeological studies of Assyrian sites, they are not really trying to address this broader picture of imperialism and how this imperialisation actually worked.’ These imperialisation…

At the Faculty of Archaeology, three new professors are appointed with effect from February 1, 2018. They are Ann Brysbaert, Marie Soressi, and Joanita Vroom. How do they react to their appointments, and what will be their foci in the following years?

“Winner CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award 2016” A Cultural History

The journey of sugar from east to west

This volume considers the military architecture and its impact on local communities in Rome's eastern frontier, which stretched from the north-east shore of the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

On Friday 2 October journalist Sander van Hoorn starts his lecture series ‘The Middle East doesn't exist’, which was organised by the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS). ‘If all goes well, people will understand the Middle East that bit less after my lectures.’

The prestigious Praemium Erasmianum Dissertation Prize is annually awarded to the five best dissertations published in the year before in the fields of Humanities, Social sciences and Law. During a festive ceremony in Utrecht Lennart Kruijer received the award from the hands of professor Bas ter Haar…