Since the adoption of agriculture people have cultivated fields. The project concerns all kinds of aspects related to raising crops.

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

In several Mediterranean regions archaeological sites have been mapped by fieldwalking surveys, producing large amounts of data. These legacy site-based survey data represent an important resource to study ancient settlement organization. Methodological procedures are necessary to cope with the limits…

How were ideas about politics and society distributed in ancient China? Hilde De Weerdt, Professor of Chinese History, investigates this using new digital methods. We speak with her about networks, big data and digital humanities.

An international team of researchers, involving members from the ERC Synergy project NEXUS 1492 based at the Leiden University, the Universities of Oklahoma, Copenhagen and York reveal challenges when studying ancient microbiomes in a recent issue of Scientific Reports.

The first objective is to create a catalogue raisonée, i.e. a structured database that will store the main attributes of each town in a standardized format database, which will be freely accessible when completed; the second objective is to exploit theories and methods that can help us to understand…

This thesis explores several aspects of these Early Old Babylonian Amorites.

Religion, Philosophy, and the Pre-modern World

This project aims to open up the pre-Islamic linguistic history of Arabia through the systematic study of the Thamudic inscriptions within a digital humanities framework.

This study links up the concept of place with memory, with the idea of transience and the transition from life to death.

Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire by Luuk de Ligt and Laurens E. Tacoma (Eds.)

Surveying Indigenous Peoples’ culinary practices prior to the advent of European invasions in the Greater Caribbean

Who is Economic Man? Every economic paradigm presupposes an anthropology, a theory of human nature. This project explores the anthropologies presupposed and produced by ancient Greek economic texts, and the specific knowledge forms that shape these anthropologies.

Proceedings of the Vth International Conference of Isis Studies, Boulogne-sur-Mer, October 13-15, 2011

Eleven talented Leiden researchers with several years of research experience have been awarded a Vidi subsidy to set up or expand their own line of research. One of them is LIAS researcher Lara Weiss.

On 8 December, on the occasion of her 65th birthday, Cisca Hoogendijk was surprised with a festive bundle of 56 text editions by friends and colleagues, edited by her former students Dr Joanne Vera Stolk and Guus A.J.C. van Loon, MA.

The Iseum Campense, the impressive sanctuary for Isis and the Egyptian gods on the Campus Martius and arguably one of ancient Rome’s most notable absent presences, is a monument central to various debates.

To what end and how does Plautus constantly underline the Helleni(sti)c provenance of his art? How does this aspect relate the author’s originality?

Conference

Pakistani archaeologist Abdul Ghani Khan (MPhil) and Dr Marike van Aerde (Leiden University) have been awarded the Prince Claus Heritage Emergency Grant for the rescue and preservation of ancient rock art in the Karakorum mountain range of the Pakistani Himalayas. The project will run for a year, from…

Ahab Bdaiwi, University Lecturer of Islamic history, religion and philosophy, was received the first Faculty Impact Award. His interest lies in ‘everything that has to do with antiquity’, especially the religious and philosophical ideas that arose at that time. ‘They can move people. And many of those…

This PhD research aims to trace the impact of the Arab conquest, both immediate and long-term, on the material and social organization of Central Asia from 651 to 821 through an “urban change” perspective in four cities: Merv, Paikent, Balkh and Samarkand.

This volume presents fourteen papers by Roman archaeologists and historians discussing approaches to the economic history of Pompeii, and the role of the Pompeian evidence in debates about the Roman economy.

In the largest study of ancient DNA ever conducted, an international team of scientists has revealed the complex story behind one of the defining periods in European prehistory. The study is published this week in the journal Nature.

Classics and Ancient Civilizations covers one 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 research…

NINO BA and MA Thesis Prize 2018

When is the last time you made a fire? Not light a candle with a match, but an actual fire from scratch. Thousands of years ago, humans already made fire. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen (Leiden University) explains when and how they did this.

Berthe Jansen receives an Early Career Award from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for her research on Buddhism and law in ancient Tibet. She receives the prize, an amount of 15,000 euros and an artwork, for her innovative research.

The Impact of Mobility and Migration in the Roman Empire assembles a series of papers on key themes in the study of Roman mobility and migration.

Lecture

When and how commenced the use of fire by early humans? Armed with stones, peat moss, and fungi, archaeologist Andy Sorensen tries to answer that question. In the February edition of the Dutch language version of National Geographic Magazine his research features in the section The Discovery.

In 2011, Dr. Amanda Henry published her findings from dental plaque picked from the teeth of Neanderthals who were buried in Iran and Belgium between 46,000 and 40,000 years ago. Plant microfossils trapped and preserved in the hardened plaque showed that they were cooking and eating starchy foods including…

Dynamics of material, social and ideological relationships in the pre-Columbian insular Caribbean

Around the sixth and seventh centuries, South and Southeast Asia saw a great religious change: Saivism largely took over from Vaisnavism. We’re going to look at the way in which Saivism, the religion of the god Siva, presented itself with respect to Vaisnavism. In particular we’ll investigate the role…

Three alumni of our Master’s degree programme in Ancient History talk to us about how they found a job after graduation during the coronavirus pandemic. During the interview, Gabriël hung a huge board covered in post-it reminders behind his laptop, Molly was glad that the members of the selection committee…

On 1 May, Casper de Jonge will be appointed Professor of Greek Language and Literature. ‘Greek literature did not come from Athens alone: authors from Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor also wrote in Greek.’

Skype a Scientist is an online platform that matches scientists with classrooms and families around the world. At the start of the corona crisis, PhD candidate Maia Casna got involved with this online platform. Now she holds online sessions to talk about science and her research project during the lockdown.…