Mathilde Mechling defended her thesis on 28 january 2020.

Lithic Biographies in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, Prof. Annelou van Gijn (2010)

Facts, Fears and the Future of Islamic Rules on Family Relation in the West

This work focuses on the interpretation of the archaeological remains of the Mixtec culture in Southern Mexico on the basis of the knowledge, perceptions, economy and worldview of contemporary descendant communities.

Leiden Journal of Pottery Studies 22, 2006

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.

Early Medieval Grave Reopenings in the Low Countries

Are you interested in studying South and South East Asian Studies at Leiden University? To have an impression of the student life, see the overview of a typical day out of the life of Yaska Sahara, first-year student.

What can languages spoken in the Lesser Sunda Islands today tell us about the histories of its various population groups?

Also including: Wateringen 4 & Acquiring a taste.

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

Every year, in the last month of the Islamic calendar, millions of Muslims from around the world come together in Mecca to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage that all capable Muslims should perform at least once in their lives. In 2013, the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden organised the exhibition…

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.

PhD Defence

The faculty has been investigating hundreds of ancient stone tombs in Jordan’s Black Desert.

Aesthetic formations and cultural repertoires give meaning to our reality in ways that are never neutral. Focusing on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its global interlocutors, this project brings together a team of scholars from Leiden University who bring in inter-disciplinary, inter-area…

This project studies the theory and practice of moral education in the (Neo)Platonic tradition.

On the 11th of June, Umberto Selva successfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Umberto on this great result.

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…

How is it possible to play a song that is part of the rituals of other people? How to transpose an idea to the stage while maintaining respect for indigenous communities? Are these performances a way of throwing light on these indigenous communities looking for a strategy of decolonization? How is it…

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.

The goal of the ANASTASIS project is the analysis and publication of early medieval (Merovingian) cemeteries in the Netherlands (c. 500 – 750 AD).

Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society addresses the broad range of work being done across the social sciences and the humanities that takes diplomacy as its focus of investigation.

Multiple identities of elites and ‘commoners’ viewed through the lens of crafting from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean

Sharing Collections and Connecting Histories

This publication of the School of Advanced Study of the University of London is one of the outcomes of the Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project and the Colonial Rural Networks project (NWO, Dr. T.D. Stek). The volume, edited by Tesse Stek and prof. Gert-Jan Burgers of the Free University Amsterdam,…

How do religious narratives persuade their readers to believe their message? And how can it be that some readers even come to treat fantasy and science fiction as authoritative religious texts? These are the core questions treated in Markus Davidsen’s new book Narrative and Belief: The Religious Affordance…

A number of scholars joint forces to analyse and re-analyse a number of Merovingian cemeteries and publish the results in the series Merovingian Archaeology in the Low Countries published by Habelt Verlag in Bonn (Germany). We call it the ANASTASIS project. This is the third volume in which the data…

Religions involve belief in the unbelievable: in evil spirits causing disease, in souls surviving death, and in gods punishing wrongdoers and blessing the just. Cognitive studies suggest that humans are predisposed to speculate about fate and divine agency, but support from so-called ‘plausibility structures’…

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of Europe, deepening your understanding of the continent’s long history.

Subproject of

This project will clarify how these concepts operated in theoretical writings on performance ,this broadened conceptual framework will not only give us a clear view on how sublime effects in performance were theorized, it will also provide us a concrete apparatus to understand the cultural and political…

The hypothesis of this research is that the municipality used the impressive the Town Hall to enforce its rule and represent its political ideas and make use of sources such as biographies, poems, pamphlets, sermons and governmental documents.

Memoria de un Paisaje Sagrado

Lecture, FLARe lecture series

Lecture, Online Book Talk

Egyptian temple culture was thought to be declining in the Ptolemaic era, after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. Nothing could be further from the truth, says Egyptologist Carina van den Hoven. Temple culture was very much alive and kicking. PhD defence 16 February.

This programme adopts a new approach based on the paradoxical nature of these responses in early modern Italy: it draws on rhetorical discussions of lifelikeness and living presence, and it uses the anthropological theory of art as agency developed by Alfred Gell.

The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…

The four thousand war victims buried at the Netherlands Field of Honour at Loenen include a number of Leiden students who were in the Resistance. The War Graves Foundation is looking for volunteers to take part in a special event to honour the deceased.

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

Boudewijn Röell's Olympic medal, an ancient skiff and photo's of memorable rituals. Asopos de Vliet - Princess Beatrix was a member - is celebrating its 55th anniversary with an exhibition in the Oude UB, from 1 November to 26 January.

Photographs of sacred rituals and ceremonies in Asia by Bangkok-based photographer and author Hans Kemp can be seen in the front hall of the Leiden Town Hall from 27 June to 19 August 2019. Here a sneak preview.

The aim of this project is the linguistic documentation of Bakola, a Narrow Bantu language.

Contemporary Maya Calendars

Leiden archaeologists reveal the function of specific locations and buildings in order to protect indigenous heritage and lifestyle.

Visual ethnographic research into development-projects or practices of embodiment

Subproject of

How is tradition constructed and belief made plausible in fiction-based religion?

To ensure that the growing global flows of labour migrants are guided correctly, we need knowledge. Why do people leave home, why do they go to specific countries, and how can that choice be influenced? And what are the consequences of their leaving for the people who stay?