The Darién region of Panama is the only land bridge connecting North, Central and South America. Nowadays home to descendants of African enslaved peoples, Indigenous peoples (Emberá, Wounaan, and Guna), and mestizos, Darién has been and still is fundamental to connectivity, cultural interchange, and…

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

Leiden archaeologists investigate how people in the past impacted their environment. Together with scientists, environmental scientists, and humanities experts, they use this information to draw conclusions about the present – and show what we can learn from it for the future.

The third project, worked on by dr. Rina Knoeff, is a synthesising project directed at studying the Leiden anatomical collections as important parts of ‘public history’. It will use the results of the other projects in order to analyse anatomical collections (their focus, significant silences, audiences,…

Lecture, CIEL Seminars

The Old Observatory houses four historical telescopes. On this page you can learn more about them.

How can we make the information in handwritten historical research reports accessible and searchable? Data scientists at Leiden University are working with other universities on a method that will improve access to cultural heritage.

LUCAS’ Medieval and Early Modern (MEM) cluster brings together expertise in the fields of art, literature and media. It focuses on the arts in society in Europe and beyond during a vast period of time, from the 7th through to the 18th centuries CE.

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history.

We’re delighted to announce our plenary speakers.

This project, South American population history revisited: multidisciplinary perspectives on the Upper Amazon (SAPPHIRE), investigates population dynamics in western South America on the basis of traces in the geographical, genetic, archaeological, ethnological, and linguistic record.

The War and Peace Studies track offers you a comprehensive understanding of the historical, theoretical, and practical dimensions of war and peace, while addressing the complex challenges of conflict and peacebuilding in the contemporary world.

This project incorporates spatiality into the discussion of medieval demography, allowing for a more nuanced view on medieval town populations. It establishes a maximum population count for towns for periods prior to 1400 and provides a means to compare the ranking of towns using size and density instead…

From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…

In this sub-project a selected number of narrative texts will be examined written in the Eurasian realm in the period 1300-1800, focusing on representations of kingship and royal authority.

LUCIS is an interfaculty knowledge centre offering a multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies.

The Modern and Contemporary Cluster is the largest within LUCAS and home to more than 100 staff members and PhD candidates.

An account of a cognitive approach to historically informed staging.

How were war heroes and war criminals created, and how do these images relate to the historical context?

Memoria de un Paisaje Sagrado

What does site patterning reveal about the social landscape dynamics across the historical divide?

Tracing Transitional English in the Twelfth Century

How was time understood during the colonial period by Tlaxcaltecan Naua communities? What is the relationship between time, spirituality and ritual in the present-day Naua community of Santa Catarina? What does this tell us about the strengths and values of Indigenous heritage and about the impact of…

During the two-year History Research Master's programme you will learn from inspired academics and learn how to conduct high quality research.

In this article, Thomas Maguire, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, examines why states use intelligence to influence external audiences.

In Indigenous Ancestors and Healing Landscapes Jana Pešoutová presents new interpretations of current healing practices in Cuba and the Dominican Republic juxtaposed against the European colonization of the Caribbean after 1492.

Announcement of the publication of Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities, the first book-length study of women, modernity, and popular music in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017).

This project examines the notion of sacred fertility and sacred landscapes, associated rituals and material culture, both archaeological and ethnographic manifestations in the Horn of Africa.

Escalating tensions in South China Sea have epitomized US–China relations for nearly a decade. Warning signs of a possible collision between a rising China and steadfast US, bring to light the need to think about ways that can halt and reverse the intensification of their confrontational moves.

On 1 September 2022 Güldeniz Kibris successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Historicising Art and Literature is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

On the 30th of September Christine Ketel successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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

On Thursday 27 June 2024 Sigrid van Roode successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

A GIS-based study for the reconstruction and interpretation of the archaeological datasets of ancient Boeotia

The Werkgroep Leidse Sterrewacht (WLS) is an amateur association that, in addition to organising public activities, is also heavily involved in maintaining the historical telescopes in the Old Observatory.

This book provides an exploration into the historical transformations of women's interactions with state police in the Western world from 1800 to 1950.

The book explores how ceramic studies illuminate interactions among ancient Mediterranean communities. By integrating post-colonial perspectives and network analysis, the volume transcends traditional

A comparative study of colonialism and rural settlement in first millennium BC west central Sardinia

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.

The Archaeology of Consumption in the Eastern Mediterranean (ca. 500-1500)

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.

Museum Studies looks at museum practices from archaeological, historical and anthropological perspectives.

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

Central elements in the research activities of all programme group members are: attachment, sensitive caregiving, and prevention and intervention.

This volume provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of the archaeology of a single Caribbean island yet published. Drawing together scholars from the Caribbean, north America and Europe, all working from a range of disciplines within the broader scope of archaeology, and drawing upon recent…

In this paper, Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio and Myfel D. Paluga recast new light on the historical tattooing of the “Pintados,” or the the name by which the inhabitants of the Visayas Islands (in the central Philippines) were called by Spanish documenters in the sixteenth century. This is one of their…

In 2018, the European Year of Cultural Heritage, Leiden University Libraries focuses on the materiality of text and image with its activity programme titled ‘Beyond Content’. The programme pays attention to the forms in which historical texts and images have come down to us, and also to the new technologies…