The Animated Image addresses the entire range of contexts in which images were described by Roman authors as being animated, as well as the accounts that Roman writers produced to explain the animation of inanimate matter.

The Leiden Ancient History specialization concentrates on the study of the economies, societies and cultures of the large empires of the Graeco-Roman world, starting with the empires of Alexander the Great and his successors.

What was the nature of the urban network in the Roman provinces of Germania Superior, Raetia and Noricum and how stood this in relation with economic and social developments?

The principle aim of the project is to study the genesis and the quantitative properties of the Early Roman urban network of the Balkan and the Danube provinces.

How did the imperial administration of justice function during the reign of the Severans?

This publication by Cornelis van Tilburg, will be published at Sidestone Press on September 28, 2022. It discusses various aspects of city gates in the Western Roman Empire: Italy, Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain.

This project aims to integrate three of the largest survey databases in the Mediterranean to study the impact of the megalopolis Rome on its direct hinterland.

Located in the small Kingdom of Commagene at the upper Euphrates, the late Hellenistic monument of Nemrud Daǧ (c. 50 BC) has been undeservedly neglected by scholars

Aetiologies seem to gratify the human desire to understand the origin of a phenomenon. However, as this book demonstrates, aetiologies do not exclusively explore origins.

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.

An environmental and palaeo-economic reconstruction.

As part of the VIDI 'Cultural innovation in a globalising society: Egypt in the Roman world', this research explores manifestations of Egypt in the material culture of Augustan Rome. This period was a crucial turning point for the urban landscape of Rome, which was characterised by cultural diversit…

ASLU 28 Michalis Karambinis (2015)

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

This project focuses on urban commercial space in Roman Italy and deals with the impact of economic growth on urban communities in the late Republic and the Imperial period (200 BCE – 300 CE).

In this publication the results of the analyses of the Roman harbour of Voorburg-Arentsburg (NL) are presented. This fully inclusive and integrated study of more than 1000 pages is published in two volumes. The publication is written in Dutch, but has got an extensive synthesis/summary in English.

This research project analyses the use of different, often competing, stereotypical images of Rome in Humanist Latin Poetry, by considering it as strategic appropriation of the classical heritage.

This research develops and applies a new approach to study Aegyptiaca Romana from a bottom-up, Roman perspective.

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

Ineke Smit defended her thesis on 17 September 2019

This monograph by dr. Kim Beerden compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome.

Modern receptions of Graeco-Roman Antiquity are important ideological markers of the ways we envisage our own twenty-first-century societies. An urgent topic of study is: what kinds of narratives – sometimes controversial – about Antiquity do people create for themselves at this moment in time, and…

Subproject of

'Communal Dining in in the Roman West' explores why the practice of privately sponsored communal dining gained popularity in certain parts of the Western Roman Empire for almost 300 years.

The department of World Archaeology combines research and education about regions all over the world, from Human Origins to the Middle Ages, and from Europe, to Asia, Africa and the America’s. That broad range in time and space makes the department a dynamic pluriform community with many different approaches,…

This PhD-research is conducted to test the hypothesis that Gutenberg and consorts developed a standardised and even unitised system for the production of textura type, and that this system was extrapolated for the production of roman type in Renaissance Italy.

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?

Publication on the excavations at Roman fort Matilo in Leiden

Shining a new light on the Roman world

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

Whereas when we started the first Project the chief aim was pure research, to find out more about the past in a region, now we see that the countries of Europe are faced with the great problem that there are far too many archaeological sites for them to deal with by excavation, but yet some kind of…

The Ancient Worlds Network brings together staff and graduate students in LIAS working on the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

Rural cult places were of central importance in the non-urbanised areas of ancient Samnium, in central southern Italy. Their development, roles and functions in ancient society, however, remain important research questions. New excavations at one of these sanctuaries, the rural temple of S. Giovanni…

Indigenous Pasts and the Roman Present

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference Amsterdam 2008

This volume offers an innovative analysis of Roman political culture in Italy from the first to the sixth century AD on the basis of seven case studies.

Casper de Jonge, Professor of Greek Language and Literature, believes that Greek texts from the Roman Empire are more interesting than was first thought. They offer a fascinating glimpse of the polyphonic and multicultural world of the Roman Empire. Inaugural lecture on 7 October.

Water, Urbanism, and Sustainability in Roman Ostia

This dissertation investigates the rural communities of the Cananefates in the period of 50 to 300 AD.

This book argues that the combined literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence supports the theory that early-imperial Italy had about six million inhabitants.

Eine Analyse materieller Kultur römischer Kolonien in der Mikroregion von Suessa Aurunca, Minturnae und Sinuessa

The fourth conference of Isis Studies was organised by Liège college and has now been published by Laurent Bricault and Miguel John Versluys.

A project aimed at understanding the complicated process of religious transformation in one of the centres of the early Muslim world.

Dividing Worlds: Tsunamis, Seawalls, and Ontological Politics in Northeast Japan

The Classics Research Master, a specialization of the Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme at Leiden University, gives you the opportunity to study the Greek and Roman world with a focus on Greek and Latin language and literature.