On 11 December 2025, students and staff members from many fields of study had the opportunity to take part in a day-long workshop on the role of the senses in ancient religions.

Banquets for the rich, porridge for the poor and a standard diet of bread, olive oil and wine. Just a few assumptions about the Roman diet.

How did early humans use their hands, and what can that tell us about our shared past? Cora Leder, newly awarded recipient of the NWO PhD in the Humanities grant, is set to find out.

The precise psychobiological mechanisms leading to chronic physiological stress responses have not been sufficiently explained, although stress is a major risk factor for disease and early death. A problem for conventional stress theory is that most of these responses seem to occur in situations without…

Duizenden metaalvondsten die door detectorzoeker wijlen Herman Zomerdijk zijn gedaan in de regio Kennemerland schetsen een uniek beeld van Noord-Holland door de eeuwen heen. Hij zocht en verzamelde decennialang historische metalen objecten in Noord-Holland en bouwde zo een unieke metaalcollectie op.

The Ra’s al-jinz project tackles economic diversification and social complexity in non-urban societies, from the perspective of Eastern Arabia, by exploring the Early Bronze Age settlement of Ra’s al-jinz RJ-3.

The one-year (60 EC) master in Classics and Ancient Civilizations provides intensive and comprehensive training covering the entire range of present-day research on the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and the Ancient Near East.

This dissertation is concerned with the study of the less than twenty remaining precolonial Mesoamerican codices. By considering these rare and fragile pictographic and hieroglyphic books from the cultural biography perspective, many different aspects of these books can be studied.

The 260 year old prize of the Legatum Stolpianum has been awarded in 2014 to two well written historical studies of high quality and with current significance. Leiden classicist Tazuko van Berkel is one of the two prizewinners.

Behind the scenes, many different people are involved in the projects within the Brave Little Ones research group. See below for an overview of the research team.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Egyptology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

University lecturer Tazuko van Berkel is one of this year's laureates of the Ammodo Science Award. The award includes a sum of 350,000 euros that she can use as she wishes to explore new avenues in basic scientific research.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme in Assyriology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Egyptology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Assyriology offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

Jasper de Bruin, Guus Besuijen, Hans Siemons & Jeroen van Zoolingen (2012). De romeinse nederzetting bij het tegenwoordige Goedereede heeft waarschijnlijk een belangrijke functie gehad in de overslag en distributie van diverse goederen, waaronder keramiek en voedingsgewassen. De opgraving van deze nederzetting…

Promotor: Prof.dr. J. Schaye, Co-promotor: Marcello Cacciato

The aims of the project are to: further clarify 'inhibition by safety'; explore and describe all possible sagety factors, with a special focus on the primary human safety source: social connectedness; reviewing prolonged stress responses without stressors.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme in Classics offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

Nico Staring, researcher in Egyptian art, culture and history, is taking part in the Leiden-Turin excavations in Saqqara, Egypt. The site of Saqqara is interesting because it was utilized as a cemetery but also the veneration of gods for a period of more than 3000 years, between ca. 3000 BCE to the…

When and how commenced the use of fire by early humans? Armed with stones, peat moss, and fungi, archaeologist Andy Sorensen tries to answer that question. In the February edition of the Dutch language version of National Geographic Magazine his research features in the section The Discovery.

When is the last time you made a fire? Not light a candle with a match, but an actual fire from scratch. Thousands of years ago, humans already made fire. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen (Leiden University) explains when and how they did this.

Are magnetic fields older than the first light? And how did they influence the development of our universe right after the Big Bang? Cosmologists from Leiden, Groningen, and Utrecht are now collaborating to investigate this.

In 2011, Dr. Amanda Henry published her findings from dental plaque picked from the teeth of Neanderthals who were buried in Iran and Belgium between 46,000 and 40,000 years ago. Plant microfossils trapped and preserved in the hardened plaque showed that they were cooking and eating starchy foods including…

NINO BA and MA Thesis Prize 2018

Buried beneath a Suffolk forest, archaeologists have uncovered the earliest known human-made fire. A fire that was sparked 400,000 years ago. This stunning UK discovery may rewrite our evolutionary story, potentially pushing fire-making back by more than 350,000 years.

When you choose to study the Assyriology Research MA, you will both be guided through the broadness of Assyriological sub-disciplines, as well as gradually led to develop your own specific research skills.

Lexicographical description of Greek; production of Greek-Dutch dictionary

The Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme offers many extracurricular opportunities to enrich your study experience.

'The World Upside Down. The Geographical Revolution in Humanist Commentaries on Pliny's Natural History and Mela's De situ orbis (140-1700)', in: Enenkel, K.A.E. & Nellen, H. (Eds.), Neo-Latin Commentaries and the Management of Knowledge in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (1400-1700).Humanistica…

The Leiden University Institute for History has a wide-ranging academic scope unique for the Netherlands. This is directly reflected in the participation of her staff in various Master's and Bachelor's programmes at Leiden University.

The Centre is the proud home of several research programmes.

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.

The oldest forms of literature and law originate from Mesopotamia (3000 BC until AD 70), as do important discoveries in science and technology. All these developments were recorded in cuneiform texts on clay tablets. There is still a lot to learn from the study of cuneiform texts, says Professor of…

On 1 May, Casper de Jonge will be appointed Professor of Greek Language and Literature. ‘Greek literature did not come from Athens alone: authors from Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor also wrote in Greek.’