Lecture

Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam have been collaborating intensively for many years. In 2012 this collaboration was formalised in the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities strategic alliance. This has allowed us to approach important and complex societal…

His PhD research project - entitled Charlemagne's Workshops - is an ongoing investigation into the role of copper-alloy craft production in the early medieval economy of North-west Europe. The geographic limits of this research have up until now centred on the Netherlands (Frisia Magna in medieval times)…

Two researchers at the Faculty of Archaeology have received a Veni award from the Netherlands Organisation for Academic Research (NWO). This award offers promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their ideas for a period of three years.

For the bachelor's course Past and Future, Archaeology students visited Castellum Hoge Woerd (Utrecht), a modern interpretation of the Roman fort that stood on that exact spot. It features an archaeological museum, the remains of a Roman river ship, a theater, and a restaurant. Students were tasked…

Starting this month, the faculty has a new communications staff member. Not an entirely new face, Marten Jesse Pot studied archaeology at our faculty and, last year, he functioned as temporary website editor.

For the annual Week of Classics, Dr Marike van Aerde and her team made a documentary about their research project Routes of Exchange, Roots of Connectivity. In the film the team touches upon the interactions of Greeks and Romans with the wider ancient world, ranging from the African kingdom of Aksum…

Professor David Fontijn is fascinated by the question why people destroy objects that are dear to them. It is a phenomenon that you find everywhere in the world, gaining particular strength in the European Bronze Age. Fontijn wrote a book on this ‘economy of destruction’, published by Routledge.

Lecture, Book presentation

Master

Two hundred years ago Caspar Reuvens was appointed as the first professor of archaeology in the Netherlands. He was to lay the basis for both the National Museum of Antiquities and the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University. To mark the occasion, the faculty is organising an anniversary lecture…

"Landscape archaeologists often face similar research questions across regions, whether working in the Mediterranean with its long history of studies or in other areas. Understanding settlement systems, connectivity or the role of identity formation as linked to places and place-making, such as ritual…

Research

During the 2019 Reuvensdagen, PhD candidate Femke Lippok was awarded the prestigious W.A. van Es-prize for her research master’s thesis The Pyre and the Grave, written in 2017. The jury lauded Femke for her pioneering work and making use of big data analysis, while adding an admirably expansive and…

Research

Lecture

Joanita Vroom and Mink van IJzendoorn have been awarded a grant of the Chastelain‐Nobach Fund, enabling them to continue their work at Gortyn, Crete. This project offers students opportunities to help uncover the archaeological mysteries of this important Roman and Byzantine city.

Until last year the Archaeology Field Techniques programme for first-year students consisted of a number of two-hour lectures. Now they spend a whole day on the programme. Assistant professor Jasper de Bruin is enthusiastic about this new approach. ‘You can do a lot more with the students, and that…

Governance and Global Affairs, Institute of Security and Global Affairs

Research

Research

Lecture, Digital Archaeology Group Meeting

PhD Defence

Peter Akkermans, Professor of Archaeology of the Middle East, cannot say for certain how much damage the destruction by IS has caused in Palmyra.

Leiden researchers have made an important contribution to the successful ‘Beyond the Nile’ exhibition in the American J. Paul Getty Museum. They also contributed to the exhibition volume that will be presented to Rector Magnificus Carel stolker on 5 September.

And suddenly, the whole Faculty is working from home. This creates new challenges, a new way of planning, and a new way of working together. We asked some staff members to tell us more about what they are currently working on.

Archaeologists from Leiden University are contributing to Grens, a theatre performance in Leiden’s Matilo neighbourhood.

Research

Organisation

Archaeologist Frans Theuws, Buddhism specialist Jonathan Silk and mathematician Ronald Cramer have each been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million euros.

With RoMeincraft, you get to play the popular computer game Minecraft while learning about the ancient Romans. RoMeincraft, the project of the VALUE Foundation founded by (at the time) archaeologists from Leiden University, is at the interface between knowledge about the past and computer games.

All staff members of the Faculty of Archaeology receive a bottle of Greek olive oil as end of the year gift, which was handed out during the end of year drinks on December 13. The GreenLand extra virgin olive oil is not only known as one of the best in Greece, it also testifies to human persistence…

Prof. David Fontijn’s Economies of Destruction team was invited by Museum Midtjylland to participate in this year’s excavation in Boest, Jutland (Denmark). The exceptional site of Boest includes burial mounds, an alignment and depositions, consisting of axes, spearheads and rings, dating to the Bronze…

From painted pottery to tattooed mummies, art has always been essential in human culture. Exploring the human past, archaeologists study art in the widest sense; from the technical aspects, to decrypting meaning. The new exhibition ‘Art-chaeology’, however, turns the tables and gives the pencil and…

Leiden University opened its doors on Leiden Museum Night, with a whole host of things to see and do at the Academy Building, Hortus botanicus and Old Observatory. Take a look at the photos and see.

Miguel John Versluys (1971) has been appointed Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Studies at the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden.

In a creative assignment as a part of the bachelor's course Visual Culture, students explored the impact and complexity of visual culture by means of visual culture. The resulting artworks were of such a high quality that it was decided to present these in an exhibition.

From Caspar Reuvens to the royal grave in Oss, and from ancient images in the Hortus to a table from Naturalis. The National Museum of Antiquities is 200 years old, and throughout this whole period there have been close contacts between museum and university. Curator Annemarieke Willemsen explains this…

Research

Education, Research

In SustainaBul, 16 higher education institutions are ranked on sustainability each year. Leiden University has managed to keep its fifth place. A good position, but with room for improvement.

Three major research projects involving Leiden scientists have been awarded a grant from NWO’s Gravitation Programme. The projects are on innovation processes, organs-on-chips and quantum software.

Home sweet home, by Arjan Louwen

Leiden University’s Campus the Hague is soon to expand into the Central Innovation District in the centre of The Hague. Plans are under way for a Campus boulevard with a new University building in the area between the Prins Bernhardviaduct and Schedeldoekshaven.

In the new board game Epoch – Early Inventors you explore the prehistoric landscape. You gather food and raw material to develop tools and skills, and you try to appease the gods. Dr Maikel Kuijpers was involved in its development from the start and he is very happy with the result. “There is a lot…

The International Cooperation Flagship (INCO) Initiatives (not to be confused with the FET Flagships) are research initiatives recognised by the EU and the relevant partner country as political priorities of mutual interest which are eventually translated into specific calls in Horizon 2020. They help…

World history is often framed in terms of flows of people and migration: humans coming ‘out of Africa’, the spread of farmers in the Holocene, Phoenician and Greek diasporas over the ancient Mediterranean, the colonization of the world by Europeans from the 16th century onwards. Together with his Exeter…

Second year BA Archaeology student Jeroen Huizer decided to participate in an excavation this summer, and he is giving us a peek in doing fieldwork under corona restrictions.

PhD Defence

The launch of the H2020 2018-2020 Work Programmes sees much larger budgets per project with fewer, more focused, call topics. In this final phase of H2020 we see four Focus Areas: 1. Building a low-carbon, climate resilient future; 2. Connecting economic and environmental gains – the Circular Economy;…