This new handbook by Frits Naerebout and Henk Singor places the history of the Greeks and Romans within the larger context of the contemporary Eurasian world.

The Research Master in Classics and Ancient Civilizations covers two years (120 EC) and provides intensive and comprehensive training across the entire range of present-day research on the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and the Ancient Near East.

Lucas den Boer defended his thesis on 23 April 2020

The faculty of Humanities scores well in the anual QS World Universities Ranking By Subject list. This year we have placed sixth in the category Classics and Ancient History.

With the resumption of archaeological investigations at Satricum (Borgo LeFerriere, Latium), in 1977, a broad array of themes, methodologies and analytical approaches have been pursued. A common thread is technology, which encompasses all social, economic and cultural aspects of human agency.

Palaeography of an ancient nomadic writing culture

This thesis attempts to establish a dialogue between the modern and the medieval traditions in logic, by means of ‘translations’ of the medieval logical theories into the modern framework of symbolic logic, i.e. formalizations.

In what ways do historical and current events affect how we should judge the legitimacy of political authorities?

On the 23rd of June Arianna Sacco successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Eline van Slijpe wrote her Master of Philosophy thesis on intergenerational justice: does the current generation have obligations towards future generations? With this thesis she won the biannual J.C. Baak Prize.

The Institute for Philosophy is pleased to host the OZSW Graduate Conference in Theoretical Philosophy on 9 and 10 January 2019

It is one of the greatest archaeological mysteries of all times: the disappearance of a Persian army of 50,000 men in the Egyptian desert around 524 BC. Leiden Professor Olaf Kaper unearthed a cover-up affair and solved the riddle.

The philosopher and psychologist G.F. Stout was the teacher of Moore and Russell around 1894. This book shows that Stout's ideas have played a role in Moore and Russell's development from their early idealism towards analytic realism, where Stout's ideas often find their origin in early phenomenolog…

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum is an annual publication collecting newly published Greek inscriptions and studies on previously known documents.

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

Political scientist Nicholas Vrousalis (Leiden University) reviews the recent literature on exploitation. He istinguishes between three main species of exploitation theory: (a) teleology-based (including harm and mutual benefit) accounts, (b) respect-based (including mere means, force, rights, and fairness)…

My research focuses on theories of the sublime by the Berlin Enlightenment philosophers Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) and Johann Georg Sulzer (1720–79).

Did early farmers deliberately use animal manure on their fields?

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.

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.

Can you imagine a radically different world? In our times dominated by neoliberal capitalism, we seem to lack not only viable alternatives, but also the capacity to envision anything outside of the status quo.

The people who lived in Saqqara, City of the Dead in Egypt, died thousands of years ago, but they are not all that different from us. This is what a study by the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, The Netherlands concludes. If you wanted to prove that you had good taste in ancient Egypt then…

An interdisciplinary study of the Persian Period

Over the last decades, the systematic investigation of urban settlements in Central-Tyrrhenian Italy led to the discovery of a growing number of contexts revealing both direct and indirect evidence of artisanal workshops. Such research commitment has yielded a vast amount of new data that greatly contribute…

Our recent excavations have focused on the more recent New Kingdom/Late Period (ca. 1500-332 BCE) material.