According to a new study by an international team of researchers from the Caribbean, Europe and North America, the Caribbean was settled by several successive population dispersals that originated on the American mainland.

Shining a new light on the Roman world

The Research MA Classics and Ancient Civilizations covers two years and can be studied in four tracks: Classics is one of them. While diving into the literary, cultural and intellectual worlds of Greece and Rome, you will be involved in current research, and stimulated to reflect on the significance…

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Classics offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

This PhD project studies immigrant groups in ancient Babylonia and aims at investigating their identities, socioeconomic status, and integration into an ancient multicultural society.

Create a world of opportunities with a master's degree from Leiden University

There are still things we can learn from the Ancient Greeks. How they managed to make sure that innovations were accepted, for example. A group of classics scholars, led by Leiden, will be carrying out research on this question funded by the largest ever NWO subsidy.

An enormous number of monumental buildings, such as burial tombs, appeared in Mycenaean Greece after 1600 BC. Why did this urge to build come to an abrupt end 400 years later? Archaeologist Ann Brysbaert investigates the possible causes thanks to her ERC Consolidator Grant.

Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) covers two years and can be studied in four programmes, one of them is Egyptology. When you choose to study this programme, you will both be guided through the broadness of Egyptological sub-disciplines, as well as gradually led to develop your own specific…

It is not man’s ingenuity, but rather materials that are the source of innovation and progress. This is what archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers concludes based on his research into craftsmanship and material processing in the Early Bronze Age.

To what extent can Nietzsche's Amor Fati be seen as a Stoic concept?

The main focus of this research project is to investigate why people in Eastern Arabia chose to reuse ancient tombs and how this can be linked to collective memory.

University lecturer Tazuko van Berkel has obtained a Vidi grant of 800,000 euros. This will enable her to research the image of man that emerges from economic texts from ancient Greece.

Scientists, including our faculty colleague Dr. Mike Field, studying an exceptionally well-preserved woolly rhinoceros have revealed details of what Britain's environment was like 42,000 years ago. The beast's remains were discovered in Staffordshire in 2002, buried alongside other preserved organisms…

The circular economy is typically seen as the progressive alternative to our wasteful linear economy, where raw materials are used to make the products that feed today’s rampant consumerist hunger, which are then thrown away. In a fascinating article, archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers reflects on the recycling…

The main purpose of DNAmarkerpoint is to better understand the ecology, evolution and biodiversity through the study of ancient- and modern DNA.

Lecture

Scientific research at the molecular level on a collection of medieval skeletons from Norton Priory in Cheshire, United Kingdom, could help rewrite history after revealing they were affected by an unusual ancient form of the bone disorder, Paget’s disease. Osteoarchaeologist Carla Burrell, attached…

War and terrorism overshadow interest in the pre-Islamic heritage of the Arabic peninsula. The new Leiden Centre for the Study of Ancient Arabia aims to make the general public more aware of the ancient history of this region.

TEXTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT. Highlights from the Collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute. Online exhibition on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the foundation ‘Het Leids Papyrologisch Instituut’ in 2015.

About 15 km to the south of the ancient city of Petra, archaeologists from the University of Leiden have discovered an impressive network of ancient water conservation measures and irrigated field systems.

Lecture

“BABYLON” investigates the extent of the similarities between Babylonian and post-exilic forms of cultic and social organization and explores the question how Babylonian models could have influenced the restoration effort in Jerusalem.

This historical study argues that the Mandaean religion originated under Sasanid rule in the fifth century, not earlier as has been widely accepted. It analyzes primary sources in Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic to clarify the early history of Mandaeism.

Just published:

The Leiden Papyrological Institute offers several courses in papyrology, from beginners' to advanced level, BA as well as MA. The courses are taught by Dr. Koen Donker van Heel (Demotic and Abnormal Hieratic papyrology) and Dr. Cisca Hoogendijk (Greek papyrology).

The archaeology of Afro-Eurasian networks across land and sea (1st millennium CE)

In the world of Ancient Greece the interpretation of supernatural signs was a versatile tool to facilitate decision-making. This is the central hypothesis of the PhD dissertation of historian Kim Beerden. Defence on 14 February.

Pyrotechnology – the manipulation and control of fire – is one of the defining characteristics of humanity, and has impacted nearly every technology that we used in the past and study archaeologically in the present. Our PhD researcher Femke Reidsma joined EXARC's podcast for May’s #FinallyFriday to…

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?

A flake of limestone (ostracon) inscribed with an ancient Egyptian word list of the fifteenth century BC turns out to be the world’s oldest known abecedary. The words have been arranged according to their initial sounds, and the order followed here is one that is still known today. This discovery has…