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

This subproject studies the material traces of rituals and symbols.

Spirit priests and ancestor cults in new guinea's far west

Archaeologist Hayley Mickleburgh studies how bodies decompose. This helps with the reconstruction of changes in the burial rituals of Caribbean Indians.

Carina van den Hoven defended her thesis on 16 February 2017.

Protestant missionaries have provided the earliest and most detailed sources regarding the ritual art of the Papuan peoples of the Geelvink Bay.

This research seeks to understand the rise and social and ideological meaning of the chieftains’ burials in the Low Countries and their relation to the Fürstengräber in Central Europe.

This work analyzes ritual practices and knowledge related to the Mesoamerican calendar with the aim of contributing to the understanding of the use and conceptualization of this calendar system in the contemporary K’iche’ community of Momostenango, in the Highlands of Guatemala.

Archaeologist Hayley Mickleburgh has already appeared in the Dutch papers a few times already due to her unusual work: the study of decomposing bodies. She studied at Leiden University, where she is now a researcher.

Migration imposes special pressures on the meaning, experience and organization of lifecycle rituals. These pressures are felt most strongly by Muslim migrants to Western Europe. In this innovative study, Nathal M. Dessing examines the effects of migration on the life cycle rituals of Moroccan, Turkish…

Early Medieval Grave Reopenings in the Low Countries

This dissertation focuses on a new field of artistic research in which a visual artist takes on the role of researcher. The main research question is whether performance art integrated in an ecumenical service, combined with artistic directions from the artist, can enhance the religious experience of…

This research focuses on a new field of artistic research in which a visual artist takes on the role of researcher. The main research question is whether performance art integrated in an ecumenical service, combined with artistic directions from the artist, can enhance the religious experience of those…

Do you live in Egypt and have you always wondered about all the pharaonic heritage surrounding you? This spring NVIC organizes a beginner’s level, introductory course in Egyptology. In 6 richly illustrated lessons, the history of ancient Egypt will be brought to life, both chronologically as well as…

Mei-Wen Chen defended her thesis on 29 June 2016

In the first half of the 20th century, hundreds of burial mounds in the Netherlands have been investigated. Many questions, however, are still unanswered. The barrow landscapes project tackles a number of these questions by re-investigating finds from excavations stored in museums with new methods and…

Stefan Belderbos was the first visual artist to undertake PhD research in the arts at Leiden University. His doctoral defence is on 2 December. Not only will he defend his dissertation on the integration of performance art in liturgy, he will also exhibit the material results of his research in the…

Also including: Wateringen 4 & Acquiring a taste.

From 29 October until 31 October 2018 the conference 'Interpreting Rituals: Historiographical Perspectives and Pluralistic Contexts' will be held at Leiden University. The conference is organised by the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR), the Dutch Association for the Study…

D. Fontijn, Quentin Bourgeois & Arjan Louwen (eds) (2012). This publication describes the history of “barrow landscape” near Echoput in Apeldoorn. Two burial mounds were examined and it became clear that our prehistoric predecessors carefully managed and maintained the open area for a long time, before…

A study concerning the collective memory in the region of the Bene lo Ya/ Ene lo I'ya, Sierra Norte, Oaxaca.

Do you live in Egypt and have you always wondered about all the pharaonic heritage surrounding you? This spring NVIC organizes a beginner’s level, introductory course in Egyptology. In 6 richly illustrated lessons, the history of ancient Egypt will be brought to life, both chronologically as well as…

Protestant missionaries have provided the earliest and most detailed sources regarding the ritual art of the Papuan peoples of the Geelvink Bay. Raymond Corbey brings these sources to bear on circa 300 ritual objects and their itineraries in the book KORWAR - Northwest New Guinea ritual art according…

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

Prehistoric burial mounds are still ubiquitous in the Northwest European landscape, but not much is known on the landscape they were part of, nor on what preceded them.

A post-colonial approach to the concept of time in the past and present Maya culture

Time, Religion and Sacred Discourses of the Ayuuk People

Modelling supra-regional communities in the early 3rd Millennium BC

Organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino, the indigenous people of the Caribbean encountered by Columbus

Bioarchaeology covers the study of all biological remains from archaeological sites.

How the systematic destruction of valuables created value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300-500 BC

Lecture

Case Studies in Etruscan Ritual Behaviour

This project examines the notion of sacred fertility and sacred landscapes, associated rituals and material culture, both archaeological and ethnographic manifestations in the Horn of Africa.

Of jars and gongs deals with the traditional ritual art of Ot Danum Dayak subsistence farmers from a stretch of tropical rainforest in the heart of Borneo. Together with the Ngaju, their neighbours to the south, they gloried in one of the most elaborate secondary mortuary rites in the world.

PhD Defence

Conference

PhD Defence

Steven Frost defended his thesis on 6 June 2017

Lecture

A biographical approach to stone and bone tools in the Rhine/Meuse delta from Late Mesolithic to Bronze Age