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.

In the 13th century BC, Mycenaean Greece was the stage for ambitious monumental building programmes. How were people and means deployed, and with what socio-economic influence? Leiden Archaeologist dr. Ann Brysbaert investigates the matter with an ERC Consolidator Grant.

Lucien van Beek studied Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, focusing on Ancient Greek. As of February 2015, Van Beek will be project manager at Ineke Sluiter’s Greek-Dutch dictionary project.

Three researchers of Humanities have been awarded with a VIDI research grant. With a VIDI they can spend five years researching the topic they submitte. The grant amounts to a maxium of eight hundred thousand euros.

The theme for this year’s Week of the Classics (19 to 27 March) is war in Classical Antiquity. Leiden Classics scholars are organising various activities, including the popular Know-Your-Classics Pub Quiz.

To be eligible for Classics (research) at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Studying ancient materials and the way they were made can give us groundbreaking insights into the past. Not only that, the interplay between people and materials is highly relevant for society today, says Ann Brysbaert, Professor of Ancient Technologies, Crafts and Materials, at the Faculty of Archaeology.…

Three fundamental research projects at Leiden in physics, chemistry and medical science have received funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). They involve research on magnetic fields in the universe, the role of myeloid cells in cancer immunotherapy and the evolution of ancient proteins.

Dr. Bettina Reitz-Joosse, postdoctoral researcher in the Classics department, has received a Niels Stensen Fellowship.

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…

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…

For a month long, the Senate Chamber of Leiden University was reserved for portraits of women. The work of art showing a hundred unique portraits of female professors has now been put into storage, but the board of the University is taking measures to promote the image of women in science.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded dr. Geeske Langejans a Veni grant for the research project What's in a plant? Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and exploitation.

Sumerian is a dead language that is not related to any other language. Howeverr, Bram Jagersma managed to compile a grammar of the language, based on inscriptions and clay tablets. Traces of the Sumerian number system can still be seen in our sixty-minute hour. Jagersma received his PhD on 4 Novembe…

On January 12 the Steering Committee Science4Arts awarded the application of Prof.dr. Maarten Jansen entitled:

Researchers have used AI to reconstruct the rules of a board game carved into a stone found in the Dutch city of Heerlen. The team concludes that this type of game was played several centuries earlier than previously assumed.

One of the ways of understanding another culture better is to examine what people experience when they read a text, or look at an image. Leiden experts have a lot of knowledge in this field, for example on culture in ancient Japan.

Sasha Lubotsky, professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, and Ineke Sluiter, professor of Classical languages and culture, have been appointed members of the Academia Europaea.

Archaeologist Natasja Sojc wants to study the archaeological finds from the Battle of Marathon as a source in themselves and thus without the need to view the mythical victory as a typical case of cultural superiority. She held her inaugural lecture about the ‘Marathon memorials’ on 4 February 2011.

Violent conflicts all over the world pose a great threat. Not only to the region’s inhabitants, but also to the cultural heritage in the area. This is the subject of the Europe Lecture in The Hague on 13 June.

Every year, an outstanding lecturer receives the Faculty Teaching Prize from the teaching committee. The prize is awarded during the official opening of the academic year on 7 September. This year, students nominated eight candidates.

Dennis Braekmans receives funding from the Byvanckfonds for the research

We are happy to introduce our new Assistant Director for Egyptology & Archaeology: Dr Ariel Singer

Classics alumnus Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer has won the Libris Literature Prize this year with his book La Superba. The Libris Literature Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in Dutch literature.

Leiden is a lively university city that’s brimming with history and boasts a student culture that’s tangible just about everywhere. Read on to discover what Leiden has to offer and get a foretaste of what you can expect.

To be eligible for Hebrew and Aramaic Studies (research) at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Egyptology (research) at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

A group of early career scientists have written a code of ethics through an initiative of the World Economic Forum. Chemist and co-author Sander van Kasteren explains its importance: ‘We want to show that we scientists have our own inherent morals too, and that we too are part of society.’

A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China

The European Research Council, better known as the ERC, turns ten this year, and researchers from Leiden celebrated this on 23 June. The ERC is an important provider of research funding, also to Leiden University. Over the past ten years researchers from the University have been awarded over 70 ERC…

The research programme Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on descriptive and comparative linguistics.

Radboud University Nijmegen is hiring a Lecturer Ancient and Medieval History (24 hours a week, starting from 15 January 2021 until 31 August 2021). Candidates should apply before 12 november 2020.

A Humanities degree gives you a solid start on the job market, as shown by the employment survey among alumni who graduated from 2020 through 2024.

Alwin Kloekhorst, working at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, has received a Vidi grant for his research on the break-up of the Indo-European language.

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

In the first year, the Linguistics programme provides a sound basis for specialisation and helps you develop your academic skills. In the second year, you will choose one of our four specialisations. While focusing on this track in your second and third year, you can also choose electives outside your…

This postponed international workshop will now be held on a digital platform. It seeks to bring together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to work on the interrelated aspects of ancient and early medieval walls in the Mediterranean and northwestern Europe throughout the first…

On this page you will find the admission requirements for this programme.

At Leiden University College (LUC), engagement with international societal partners occurs through research, education, and internships, fostering mutually beneficial collaborations with NGOs, public service institutions, and international counterparts.

The story of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh, is world famous. But did you know that the Ancient Egyptians mummified not only people but animals too? The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden recently put a bunch of animal mummies through a CT scanner. This was in collaboration with Canon Netherlands…

The renovated National Museum of Antiquities will re-open for the public on 15 December. Conservator Ruurd Halbertsma, Leiden Professor of Archaeology, explains why the renovation was needed: 'More visible cohesion between cultures, more context and more artistic lighting.'

Professor Peter Bisschop, lecturer in Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia, has been awarded a grant by the NWO Free Competition to fund his research into the rapid growth of Saivism in the sixth and seventh centuries in South and Southeast Asia. The research project, entitled ‘From Universe…

On November 25, Dr Araceli Rojas presented her book El tiempo y la sabiduría: un calendario sagrado entre los ayöök de Oaxaca. The event took place in the Central Public Library of the State of Oaxaca, in the heart of Oaxaca City, at 7 pm.