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…

Which plants are depicted, described or collected in these century-old objects? Who made these objects, where and for what purpose? What is their scientific and societal relevance today?

A technique originally developed for satellite imaging can now be used to recover pictographic texts from underneath the surface of a five hundred year old Mexican manuscript.

This dissertation concerns the role of analogy in Kant’s “Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment”, especially the role of analogy for the formation of the concept of a natural end (Naturzweck). A ‘natural end’ is a ‘regulative concept’ of the reflective power of judgment, that is, a heuristic…

The central question of this thesis is: What drives late Middle Paleolithic stone artifact variability? In its attempt to answer this question, this thesis is a contribution to understanding variability within and between late Middle Paleolithic assemblages of the European Plain.

Tomography is a powerful technique to non-destructively determine the interior structure of an object.Usually, a series of projection images (e.g.\ X-ray images) is acquired from a range of different positions.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

Itandehui Jansen graduated from the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam and is currently making films as part of her PhD project at Leiden University. And with great success. Her films have been shown at the IDFA and the Short Film Corner of Cannes, and have won a number of prizes.…

Lecture

Where does the urge to collect come from? What are the explicit or underlying reasons for gathering large amount of objects?

Material Culture Studies revolves around the analysis of the cultural biographies of all sorts of material objects from flint axes, to pottery, to houses and monumental structures.

Discover the effects of clothing value and lifespan on buyer-user-producer relationships through collaborative research with Localising Global Garment Biographies.

Seminar 12th of April

The year 2019 is the 444th anniversary of the University’s ‘birth’ and the 350th anniversary of painter, draughtsman and engraver Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669). Reason therefore to celebrate both 444 years of Leiden University and Rembrandt Year. But what was the connection between Rembrandt, the most…

Laura van Broekhoven always knew she wanted to study archaeology, and that’s exactly what she did. Now this Leiden alumna is director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, one of the four museums of the University of Oxford.

The Middle Paleolithic site of Neumark was first discovered in the 1980’s by German geologist Matthias Thomae.

Conference

The chief curator of the National Museum of Ethnology, Laura van Broekhoven, is participating in the Museum Leadership Institute at the Claremont Graduate University.

Morocco and the Netherlands have a strong bond. The modern community of Dutch people with Moroccan roots is part of a shared history spanning four centuries of social and academic exchange. As an institution that functions at the heart of Moroccan society and the university system, the Netherlands Institute…

The Centre for Indigenous America Studies (CIAS) at Leiden University is designed to coordinate and promote the teaching and research of Indigenous languages, literatures, cultures and cultural heritage. Our aim is to contribute to an increased acknowledgement, recognition and understanding of Indigenous…

Indigenous philosophies have been ignored for too long. This prompted Osiris González Romero to study the wisdom of the Nahua in Mexico. Their philosophy has an important message for the consumption society: see the earth and nature as living beings and not just as resources. PhD defence 22 June.

From 1 December 2019, Miguel John Versluys, Professor and Chair of Classical & Mediterranean Archaeology at the Faculty of Archaeology, will join the Supervisory Council of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden (RMO).

From Caspar Reuvens to the royal grave in Oss, and from ancient images in the Hortus to a table from Naturalis. The National Museum of Antiquities is 200 years old, and throughout this whole period there have been close contacts between museum and university. Curator Annemarieke Willemsen explains this…

Investigating the contribution of interpreters, informants, hunters and guides in the making of colonial scientific knowledge.

Ralph Keuning, the former director of Museum de Fundatie, a museum for the visual arts in Zwolle, stepped down in 2022 following complaints about authoritarian leadership. On top of that, an independent investigation has shown that he received almost €200,000 from the struggling museum after his departure.…

The Young Alumni Network (YAN) organised a working visit to the National Museum in Amsterdam on Thursday 5 July. Alumni were able to take a look behind the scenes at the Museum and the excursion ended with an exclusive tour.

Research framework CIAS

The Queens of the Nile exhibition at the National Museum of Antiquities finally affords the wives of the pharoahs the attention they deserve. Thanks to guest curator Olaf Kaper, students and PhD candidates gained valuable experience in museum curating.

In January 2015, during an excavation ahead of a road-building project in the west of the Netherlands, archaeologists from the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden, ARCHOL BV and ADC Archeoprojects recovered an extraordinary set of Bronze Age artefacts.

Van 4 tot en met 8 juli 2022 verzorgt Radboud Erfgoed in Nijmegen een Summer School (in het Nederlands) over erfgoedcollecties, hun geschiedenis, over sporen van gebruik en wat die ons leren over de mensen die de boeken en objecten verzamelden die nu onze collecties vormen. De deelnemers gaan aan de…

Like many others, Ruurd Halbertsma has had a rollercoaster of a year. His museum, the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO), was closed for a long while because of the lockdown. Visitor numbers picked up again from September, but it the next few weeks will be tense now the hospitals are full again. Halbertsma:…

The special of the Dutch History Programme Andere Tijden 'Missie Geslaagd?' (Mission accomplished?) tells the story of the last fathers of the Holy Spirit Congregation who live in Gennep. Professor of Anthropology and Sociology of Africa Peter Pels is one of the specialists in this episode. He explains…

The board of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) has agreed on June 27 on a plan for closer collaboration with Leiden University and the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO). The plan includes the launch of a NINO research institute with an annual budget of approximately 300.000 euro.

Archaeological and Anthropological perspectives

This year’s “best master’s thesis in the area of national or international history” was written by Bareez Majid, who has completed a research master's in Middle Eastern Studies. She wins the prestigious 2015 Volkskrant–IISG thesis prize for her courageous, solid research on a former “torture prison”…

How did manioc, a poisonous root, become the staple of Amazonia and change the lives of prehistoric Amazonian peoples? Veni grant recipient, Konrad Rybka aims to unravel this mystery using a variety of research methods across different disciplines.

To what extent is the image of the Taino settlements on Hispaniola representative for the whole island, or is it only related to a few large settlements of known caciques?

Het zichtbaar maken van ongeschreven verhalen van inheemse culturen en volken van de Cariben. Dat doet de tentoonstelling ‘Caribbean Ties’ in de Oude UB.

On 1 September, Ad Maas, curator of Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, was appointed professor by special appointment. In this role, he will primarily focus on the representation of natural sciences in museums.

Study all aspects of cultural heritage from an archaeological prespective.

Desafios para a proteção dos conhecimentos tradicionais, dos recursos genéticos e das expressões culturais tradicionais dos povos indígenas no cenário internacional

Art historian and professor Kitty Zijlmans is on a mission: she wants to get rid of the notion that the West dominates the art world. To no longer put 'the West and the rest', but the exchange between ideas and cultures at the centre of art history. ‘You will see that there has been so much exchange,…

The cultural sector, shut down by the corona pandemic, must urgently look for new ways to generate income.

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…