We are a diverse collective with members from different faculties and organisations. Select a faculty or organisation in the left column to search and connect with members. Have questions or want to become a member? Get in touch with the steering committee.

Overview of the main research projects at the Leiden Papyrological Institute.

How can theories about modern disinformation help to understand how Roman documentary fictions functioned?

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.

This project receives funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101054849 (PURANA).

This seminal volume covers the entire global history of urbanization since the rise of cities in Mesopotamia in the 6th millennium BC. Leiden historians Wim Blockmans, Leonard Blussé, Luuk de Ligt and Leo Lucassen contributed survey and thematic chapters.

Papyrology+, founded in 2014, is a collaboration of Leiden scholars studying (Abnormal) Hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Arabic papyri from a socio-historical, economic and linguistic perspective. Papyrology+ aims to explore new opportunities and directions in the study of ancient…

PhD defence

Memoria de un Paisaje Sagrado

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).

Fieldwork is an essential part of this research and of course this part of the project is also a joint effort by citizen scientists and professional archaeologists. Discover when fieldwork will take place and how you can participate.

Leiden Journal of Pottery Studies 22, 2006

Water Management, Agricultural Practices, and Social Complexity in Southern Turkmenistan during the Bronze Age

On Wednesday 20 November 2024 Sara Mirahmadi successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The edited volume 'Arabic in context: celebrating 400 years of Arabic at Leiden University' edited by Ahmad Al-Jallad is out. The volume contains the contributions to the 2013 conference with the same title, held at Leiden University and was published as part of Brill's the Studies in Semitics Language…

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

This book covers the story of Greece and its central role in our understanding of European civilization, from the Palaeolithic era (400,000 BP) to the early modern period (1950 AD).

Why does the history of dogmatism deserve our attention? This open access book analyses uses of the term, following dogmatism from Victorian Britain to Cold War America, examining why it came to be regarded as a vice, and how understandings of its meaning have evolved.

Almost all languages of Europe and of a large part of western Asia belong to a single language family, which is called Indo-European, and which includes modern languages like English, Dutch, Russian, Farsi, but also ancient ones like Ancient Greek, Latin, Hittite and Sanskrit.

This dissertation addresses the different use of the same philosophical model: immanent teleology. In this work Aristotle, the founder of the study of final causes, is put in relation with the modern French evolutionary thinker Henri Bergson, the philosopher of time. The dissertation tackles the two…

Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker has been awarded a subsidy from the European Research Council to study the dispute between both Koreas and China on the history of Manchuria.

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

The Homer reading group is a ProParte sub-group.

If you have a question, there are various ways to get in touch with us.

Are you fascinated by the past and do you like to challenge yourself? In the Dutch-taught Bachelor's programme History at Leiden University you will approach the past with a sharp and analytic view and you will learn to look at the past from a completely new perspective. study the history of the ancient…

Daniel Soliman defended his thesis on 15 September 2016.

The ability to create objects and structures with our hands has been essential to human development. This ability is something modern society is at risk of losing. Leiden archaeologists gather knowledge about ancient processes of ‘making and creating’ over the centuries, knowledge that helps our current…

Renske Janssen started her PhD project at LUCAS and LUIH in October 2015. Her project is part of the research field ‘History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity’, supervised by Jürgen Zangenberg.

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.

Whether implicitly or explicitly, we all have ideas about how the law is supposed to function, whose interests it should represent, and what role it should play in society. This project explores the ways in which these questions are addressed in the works of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus…

An integrated approach to ceramic standardization and change in Archaic Satricum (6th–4th century BC)

The team consists of

Doctoral Thesis

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history. Members of LUCAS teach in a wide variety of Bachelor's, Master’s, and Research Master’s Programmes.

The project contends that in Late Antiquity (c. 300-500 AD) both the figure of Christ and those of Pythagoras and Socrates underwent a parallel process of metamorphosis facilitated not least through an intellectual exchange between Christian theologians and Neoplatonic philosophers. From Iamblichus…

Reconstructing language history and prehistory in the context of the Indo-European language family.

What are the phylogenetic relationships among the members of speciation bursts?

Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) covers two years and can be studied in four programmes, one of them is the Hebrew and Aramaic Studies specialisation. When you choose to study this programme you will both be guided through the broadness relevant sub-disciplines, as well as gradually led…