Caspar Reuvens, the world’s first Professor of Archaeology, was a prominent classical scholar and from his appointment in 1818 onwards Classical & Mediterranean Archaeology has been an important field of research in Leiden.

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of the Mediterranean, deepening your understanding of this fascinating region. From the many faces of ‘Hellenism’ to the early rise of the Roman Republic, to the voyages of European Crusaders in medieval times. The archaeology…

Leiden University provides ambitious students with the most recent and innovative areas of knowledge, and offers them the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

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…

Update : March 2020 A.J. Mills

On the 16th of May, Qing Yang successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Qing on this achievement!

This research cluster aims to analyse and interpret the formation and transmission of Graeco-Roman culture by exploring the relationships between cultural products (texts, objects, practices) and their societal and historical contexts.

Atherosclerosis is the most prominent underlying pathology of cardiovascular disease and an important cause of major adverse cardiovascular events.

Settlement burials in the pagus Texandrië and the transformation of Merovingian society c. 700 AD (Southern Netherlands)

The Ager Venusinus Project studies the relatively small number of recognized colonial dwellings dated securely to the period of colonization (i.e. the 3rd century BC). With a special interest in the Black Gloss ceramic typochronology

The Pontine Region Project (PRP) is an on-going archaeological project that aims to study the long-term history of settlement and landscape in the Pontine region

On October 9th, Peter Alexander Kerkhof succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Peter Alexander on this great result.

On 25 November 2018, Laurens de Hoog defended his thesis 'De prioriteitsregel in het vermogensrecht'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. mr. W.G. Huijgen.

This thesis attempts to describe the entire corpus of Latino-Punic inscriptions, found in Tripolitania.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Augustan Rome: Greek culture in the Roman world.

Director: Dr. Fred Leemhuis

Towns and elites in Merovingian northern Gaul, 450-650

The Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Religions (L*CeSAR) facilitates the integration of scholarly expertise and resources, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and intellectual exchange among researchers of ancient religions, both within Leiden University and in the broader academic commu…

Which plants in the Mediterranean garden were already known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and how were they utilized?

Greek papyrology is the science that is concerned with deciphering and studying all texts written in Greek on papyrus. Papyrus was the writing material of antiquity and was made from strips of the papyrus plant stuck together.

What does the excavated material tell us about the continuation and/or change of urban life during the transitional phrases from Antiquity to the Middle Ages on Crete and in the eastern Mediterranean more generally?

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…

This project is about a funerary altar with a Latin inscription for Q. Petronius Turnus. It was found in Rome and dated to the first century CE. It became part of the collection of Baron van Westreenen, and is now in Museum The House of the Book in The Hague.

The following people are part of the Academia in Motion Steering Group.

Leiden alumni find work in all kinds of interesting places. We gather the stories of our alumni and publish then regularly in our alumni newsletter and in Leidraad magazine. You can find all their stories on this page. They give a good impression of what life is like for Leiden alumni after they have…

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

Natural history collections provide invaluable sources for researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds, aspiring to study the geographical distribution of flora and fauna across the globe as well as other evolutionary processes.

A scientific assessment of the site selection for the ‘Frontiers of the Roman Empire’ Unesco World Heritage Site.

This Festschrift in honour of Cary J. Martin

The journey of sugar from east to west

In ancient Greece and Rome, nighttime encompassed a distinctive array of cultural values that went far beyond the inversion of daytime. Night was a mythological figure, a locus of specialized knowledge, a socially significant semantic space in various literary genres, and a setting for unique experi…

The culture and texts of the classical antiquity are still a source of inspiration for our modern world. In the Dutch-taught Bachelor's programme Greek and Latin Language and Culture you will examine all aspects of the Greek and Roman antiquity. From Homerus to Horatius. From Plato to Cicero.

The academic staff of the Leiden University Institute for History.

The combination of global questions and a wide range of local sources characterizes the Leiden University Institute for History.

The partial University Teaching Qualification (Basis Kwalificatie Onderwijs, BKO) certificate provides recognition that a PhD candidate has gained knowledge and experience as a teacher.

Human vocal communication and music perception represent advanced cognitive skills, seemingly innate and universal. These faculties encompass a range of perceptual and cognitive abilities. Cross-species research sheds light on the origins of musicality by investigating whether these traits are shared…

On 1 December 2020, Bernadette Muscat defended her thesis 'Insolvency Close-out Netting: A comparative study of English, French and US laws in a global perspective'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. M. Haentjens and Prof. B. Wessels.

On 9 January 2019, Willem van der Muur defended his thesis 'Land rights and the forces of adat in democratizing Indonesia'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.W. Bedner and Prof. dr. J.M. Otto.

LUCDH is creating a community of LU scholars researching in Digital Humanities. A selection of their DH Projects are listed on this page. If you are an Affiliated member and would like your project listed here or would like to be an Affiliated member, please email us at lucdh@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Rembrandt painted this Flora, the Roman goddess of spring, in 1635. She is on display above the archway leading from the Academy Building to the lush flora of the University’s Hortus Botanicus. Rembrandt, who had his own cabinet of curiosities, almost certainly knew this botanical garden, the oldest…

Following its foundation in 1575, Leiden University was quick to incorporate Roman goddess Minerva in its coat of arms. This explains why Rembrandt’s Minerva from 1635 can be seen on the façade of the Academy Building, which has been in use by the University since 1581. This is where, in the Senate…

The first decade of excavations at Oss

Case Studies in Etruscan Ritual Behaviour