In the context of the Erasmus+ programme on ‘International Credit Mobility’, 17 exchange grants, with a joint worth of €83.000, were awarded to an exchange project between Leiden and East Africa.

This dissertation is a study of archaeological remains left behind by nomadic communities in the Black Desert, situated in the northeast of modern Jordan.

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

We welcome Susanne Dahlgren and Venla Lehtinen from the Finnish Institute in the Middle East (FIME) at NVIC for the coming months. Due to the escalation of the war in the Middle East, they evacuated their office in Beirut and decided to come to Cairo. NVIC is happy to be able to offer a base for them…

On 6 June, Armin Cuyvers lectured students and staff of the University of Nairobi on EU law and comparative regional integration

Promotores: G.A. Persoon, H.H. de Iongh

Matthias Haentjens and Ross Spence participated in Warsaw conference and PhD workshop on 16 & 17 November 2018.

“The ideas from society should be heard in order to narrow the gap between government and the people”. These words from Kwagjin Choi, Korean diplomat and co-architect of South Korea’s People Diplomacy sum up why, in the view of this guest speaker at ISGA, foreign ministries should pay much more attention…

The rationale, construction, and function of the imperial capitals of Assyria

From travel stories, travel guides and hotel vignettes to postcards, drawings, menus, brochures, posters and photos. The collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) hold many sources that provide insight into the development of tourism in the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia, from 1870…

Innovating objects in a Eurasian center of the Late Hellenistic period.

The Assyrian Empire was the first state to achieve durable domination of the Ancient Near East, enduring some seven centuries and, eventually, controlling most of the region. Yet, we know little about how this empire emerged from a relatively minor polity in the Tigris region and how it managed to consolidate…

Friday 25 April 2025 | Leiden University Institute of Security and Global Affairs – The Hague

This project looks at the Ancient Greek language from the perspective of the ordinary writer. A large corpus of more than 60.000 Greek texts on papyrus, from private letters to petitions and contracts, offers an excellent opportunity to study the Greek language as written by non-literary writers in…

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

Huda Abi-Fares defended her thesis on 10 January 2017.

On Thursday 10 April 2025 Wahyu Widodo successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Political scientist Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) analyses the background and implications of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi admires Israel’s achievements, but structural differences between Indian and Israeli national security situations, differences in the leaders’ worldviews and the absence of a common enemy inhibits stronger strategic rapprochement, argues political scientist Nicolas…

What should a confederal constitution for the EAC look like? What are the legal challenges for making the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) work? And what insights can be drawn in this context from the successes and failures in the EU?

Traces of a Colourful Past

MERGE aims to understand how we can improve the usefulness and accessibility of policy frameworks and indicators on well-being and strengthen the transition toward sustainable development policies.

Friday 25 September, 2015 marks the official launch of Leiden University's Central and East European Studies (CEES) Center.

In November, Somalia was the latest country to join the East African Community (EAC). This follows the Democratic Republic of Congo's accession to the regional intergovernmental organisation in March.

An interdisciplinary international consortium to address critical healthcare gaps for older adults in indigenous Dayak communities has been awarded an LDE Global Support grant (INUCoST).

This thesis explores several aspects of these Early Old Babylonian Amorites.

Volume 4 and 5 of the Leiden series 'Dutch Sources on South Asia' are now available, written by Markus Vink (vol.4) and Carolien Stolte (vol.5).

With the help of the JEDI fund, Fatima al Moufridji and Thijs Porck went in search of cultural contacts between early medieval England, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. Together they made four knowledge clips that can now be seen on YouTube.

Throughout history, a large portion of the world's population has lived under imperial rule. Although scholars do not always agree on when and where the roots of imperialism lie, most would agree that imperial configurations have affected human history so profoundly that the legacy of ancient empires…

The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes examines the transformation of rural landscapes and societies that formed the backbone of ancient empires in the Near East and Mediterranean. Through a comparative approach to archaeological data, it analyses the patterns of transformation in widely differing imperial…

On Thursday 9 December, Dr Upik Djalins presented an online lecture, entitled 'The Colonial Bureaucratic Network versus the Metropole: The Origin Story of Land Alienation Prohibition in the 1870s East Indies'.

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) master's students delved into the relationships between humans and the environment in the landscape of lowland, coastal and riparian/swamp areas of East Kalimantan. Through an intensive two-week Thesis-Lab program titled “Sustainable Urbanism in East Kalimantan”, LDE and Universitas…

In an article for East Asia Forum, University Lecturer Vincent Chang sheds light on China’s ambition to globalise its pantheon of national heroes.

In this book, Vanessa Newby provides the first detailed examination of credibility’s essential place in peacekeeping.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy calls for paper proposal submissions. Accepted papers will be included in the journal's special issue on Japanese diplomacy under the broad theme of 'Japan between the West and the East'.

The project ‘Between the Holy Land and the World’ proposes a connected history of the Christian communities in the Near East (1900-1948) by means of a study of unpublished Franciscan and Dominican photographic collections.

This research delves into the unique cultural approach of the Tenggerese people, an Indigenous community in East Java, Indonesia, regarding elderly care. It focuses on their traditional practices of bakti (‘filial piety’) and sayan (‘mutual aid’), deeply ingrained in the community's lifestyle and va…

Reconstructing Later Prehistoric Societies in Northern Iraq (ca. 7000-3000 BCE)

China-watchers are still grappling with the wide-ranging implications of the Hong Kong national security law. Has Beijing really abrogated the legally-binding Sino-British Joint Declaration after just 23 of the agreed-upon 50 years?

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

Using object assemblages to reconstruct activities, modes of deposition and abandonment at the Late Bronze Age dunnu of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria.

Essays in Honour of Olivier P. Nieuwenhuyse

This collaborative research group (CRG) facilitates the synergies of researchers engaged with African languages and documentation of texts conducted in East Africa, paying particular attention to ‘endangered archives’ and ‘endangered languages’.

On the 8th of September Yun-An Olivia Dung successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Thursday, May 16, Leiden University Libraries is organizing a workshop on early photography of the Middle East. In the workshop, curator Maartje van den Heuvel shows photos of three adventurous Dutch nineteenth-century travel and photography pioneers. They created beautiful photos and photo albums…