Middle East Studies Lecture

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…

How do we explain the fact that certain areas had many large cities, while other areas were studded with large numbers of small towns and yet other areas had very few urban agglomerations of any kind?

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).

The prehistory of communication metaphors

Memoria de un Paisaje Sagrado

The one-year Master's specialisation in Ancient History: Empires, Societies and Cultures offers an attractive mix of theoretical knowledge and practical experience.

This thesis analyses the existence and the functioning of the urban labour market in the early Roman empire by looking at the crucial influence of social structures, such as the family and non-familial labour collectives.

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

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 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.

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.

Jos Schaeken has just published a book entitled 'Stemmen op berkenbast. Berichten uit middeleeuws Rusland: dagelijks leven en communicatie'.

‘Over leven in Aarlanderveen’ , the film that Master's student Marleen Oostenrijk made for her graduation project of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, will be screened 22-28 February at the local television station Studio Alphen. The film portrays the liveability of the village Aarlanderveen…

Professor Miguel John Versluys of Leiden University has been recognised with the esteemed Humboldt Research Award, a testament to his groundbreaking work in global archaeology, reception-studies and the deep history of globalisation. The award, granted by the Alexander von Humbold-Stiftung, celebrates…

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…

To be eligible for Assyriology at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Do you have a question about student life in Leiden, studying at Leiden University, or do you want more information about the History master's programme? Chat with a current student for answers to your questions!

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.

Non-urban settlement organization and Roman expansion in the Roman Republic (4th-1st centuries BC)

This project will study the cultural meaning of the mythological figure of Orestes within the ancient Greek imagination, as it emerges from various literary sources from the archaic and classical periods.

Despite the field’s general agreement that pyrotechnology had a significant impact on the cultural evolution of humankind, our understanding of the origins and development of fire use and its role in humankind’s cultural evolution is very limited, blurred by strong disagreements over its chronology…

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)

Day-to-day activities are important in the development of social identities, the establishment of social standing, and the communal understanding of societal rules. This perspective is broadly referred to as practice theory and relates to the power of an overarching social structure and the individual…

The team consists of

Doctoral Thesis