The subject of this thesis is Alverata, a twenty-first-century typeface whose design was inspired by the shapes of Romanesque capitals such as those found in inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Compact Cinematics challenges the dominant understanding of cinema to focus on the various compact, short, miniature, pocket-sized forms of cinematics that have existed from even before its standardization in theatrical form, and in recent years have multiplied and proliferated, taking up an increasingly…

From as early as classical antiquity there has been an interplay between literature and medicine.

Sasha Goldstein defended her thesis on 10 January 2019

This research will investigate which aspects of On the sublime received attention in the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century and how the sublime found its way in the political and artistic discourse of that time. Thus I aim to shed light on the role of art in politics and society in this…

An environmental and palaeo-economic reconstruction.

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.

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

In tracing intra-site, local and regional craft networks in Late Bronze Age Tiryns (Greece) the project aimed to understand technological changes, (dis)continuities and social practices from the Late Palatial until the Post Palatial periods in Mycenaean Greece.

To be able to identify, slow down and reverse functional deterioration in the elderly to give them more years of good health.

Conference

Lecture

Ömer Koçyigit defended his thesis on 7 July 2020

A brief review essay on some of the work that has been recently published in the emergent field of digital ethnography.

The kidneys play a major role in the elimination of drugs. In children, the exact age-related physiological changes underlying kidney function remain largely unknown.

In 2005 Leiden's municipal archaeologists excavated a 2,700-year-old canoe dug out from a tree trunk. Researchers from Material Culture Studies are now building a reproduction of this vessel using replicas of Iron Age tools. The researchers are hoping to gain a better understanding of the building p…

According to a number of British historians, the elderly had a particularly high status in the early Middle Ages. A new book by Leiden cultural historian Thijs Porck sheds a different light on the matter: elderly people had to earn that respect first, and old age was often described in negative terms…

The DNA of young people is regulated to express the right genes at the right time. With the passing of years, the regulation of the DNA gradually gets disrupted, which is an important cause of ageing. A study of over 3,000 people shows that this is not true for everyone: there are people whose DNA appears…

Archaeologist Dr Gerrit Dusseldorp's research project was covered by a South African newspaper. Dusseldorp and his team investigate the evolution of human behaviour through artefacts dug up in South African caves.

Joanita Vroom, Associate Professor Archaeology, regularly tries out old recipes, together with a group of Archaeology students. 'You really need to love garlic.'

Princeton University has officially launched its website, MAFE: Middle Ages for Educators. MAFE is aimed at university and secondary students and educators and, more broadly, at anyone who is interested in studying, teaching, or learning more about Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

The Australian Research Council funded a truly ‘global archaeology’ project comparing the archaeologies of southwest Tasmania and southwest France during the last Ice Age.

Prof. David Fontijn’s Economies of Destruction team was invited by Museum Midtjylland to participate in this year’s excavation in Boest, Jutland (Denmark). The exceptional site of Boest includes burial mounds, an alignment and depositions, consisting of axes, spearheads and rings, dating to the Bronze…

On the 6th of July, wood specialists, members of the canoe club Natsec, a professional boat builder, volunteers of the Vlaardingen Broekpolder and students and staff of the Faculty of Archaeology of the Leiden University gathered on the waterfront in Vlaardingen. Two reconstructions of prehistoric canoes…

Large-scale forest fires started by prehistoric hunter-gatherers are probably the reason why Europe is not more densely forested. This is the finding of an international team, including climate researcher Professor Jed Kaplan of the University of Lausanne and archaeologist Professor Jan Kolen of Leiden…

The first decade of excavations at Oss

The role of domestic and wild resource exploitation in Bronze Age subsistence

Today’s performances of medieval polyphony have a lot in common with those of other ‘classical’ or ‘early’ music. Ensembles perform pieces written by known or lesser known composers, which the listener can revisit by listening to recordings or reading a score.

What can the composition and arrangement of urnfield graves tell us about the social and ideological believes of the urnfield period societies?

A large multidisciplinary team of experts on ageing has secured over €8.5m for a major study of which factors and solutions promote healthy ageing and increase vitality. The LUMC and the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) are two of the centres involved in this national research projec…

Want to find out more about our master’s programme? Or are you wondering what questions are asked during the Q&A about the content or careers of Vitality and Ageing? Than watching our webinar would suit your curiosity!

To bring the academic field closer to the professionals working in the field of Vitality and Ageing, the master’s Vitality and Ageing organises its first network event on November 22nd at the Boerhaave Plein of the LUMC.

A Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) was published in July 2015, edited and translated by Adriaan van der Weel and Peter Davidson.

Early cave paintings of hunting scenes may give the impression our Stone Age ancestors lived mainly on chunks of meat, but plants were just as key to their survival. Plants rich in starch helped early humans to thrive even at the height of the last Ice Age, Leiden archaeologist Amanda Henry tells Horizon…

The Faculty of Archaeology has appointed Dr Marie Louise Sørensen as Professor in Bronze Age Studies in the European Prehistory research group from 1st September 2012. Prof. Sørensen is a Reader in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge (Fellow of Jesus College).

Master Vitality and Ageing’s (V&A) alumnus Willeke Ravensbergen conducted for her master’s thesis research on the impact of combinations of future trends on healthcare utilisation of older people in collaboration with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (Rijksinstituut voor…

The Middle Ages are becoming increasingly more popular: just look at the popularity of such ‘medievalist’ TV series as Game of Thrones and Vikings, and let’s not forget popular re-enactments of medieval battles. Leiden University is home to many specialists of this fascinating period and this new blog…

In 2017 Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof defended her dissertation on Early Iron Age elite burials of the Low Countries at the Faculty of Archaeology. Out of 36 applications from ten different countries, her dissertation was awarded the Prix Européen D’Archéologie Joseph Déchelette on June 15th.

In August 2010 the Faculty of Archaeology conducted an excavation in the Maashorst-area, situated in the northeastern part of Brabant.

What do a novel anti-ageing ingredient for cosmetics and a new type of chicken feed have in common? They were both produced using a new solvent developed by Leiden biologists in 2011. The medium is neither solid nor liquid, and the industry is now starting to see it’s many possibilities.

In this blog post, authors Corneliu Bjola, Jennifer Cassidy and Ilan Manor discuss their article for the Special Issues on Debating Public Diplomacy: Now and Next (Vol. 14, 1-2).

Three years ago, on 13 October 2017, the Leiden Medievalists Blog was established. In their blogs, Leiden researchers from all disciplines talk about the Middle Ages in a fun and interesting way. Editors Jip Barreveld, Marlisa den Hartog and Thijs Porck talk about the blog and why the Middle Ages are…

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.’

What kinds of vocal music were not typically transmitted in written musical notation? Can specific ‘lost’ song forms - siciliane, giustiniane, le Grechesche, gli stili “regionali“ nel canto del quattrocento - be more precisely identified than they have been until now, both in musicological research…

People in the Early Bonze Age used bronze artefacts as a means of payment. This is the conclusion reached by archaeologists Maikel Kuijpers and Catalin Popa in a PLOS ONE article published on 20 January. The discovery led to a surge of media reports.

Professor David Fontijn is fascinated by the question why people destroy objects that are dear to them. It is a phenomenon that you find everywhere in the world, gaining particular strength in the European Bronze Age. Fontijn wrote a book on this ‘economy of destruction’, published by Routledge.

Bronze Age settlement sites in the Dutch river area (c. 2000-800 BC)

Cultural biographies of persons, objects and 'natural' places in the Bronze Age of the Southern Netherlands, c. 2300-600 BC.