Why did India develop a strong military partnership with the state of Irael, after having ignored it for 42 years? How could both countries develop defense ties in spite of limited political leadership involvement? Finally, what are the prospects for defense relations as India grows to become one of…

If you really want to understand East Asia, you can't overlook Korea. At the Bachelor's programme Korean Studies at Leiden University you will discover a fascinating mix of age-old traditions and modern customs through intensively studying culture, history and language.

It's pretty hard to spot a single 5 nanometer particle. Leiden physicists pulled it off by turning a 120 nm gold rod into a detector.

From 9 September onwards, Leiden scientists, citizens and farmers will jointly investigate how to sustainably manage peat meadowland. In ten years' time, they hope to have learned how to promote biodiversity and simultaneously reduce nitrogen and CO2 emissions, among other things. The research will…

The Faculty of Archaeology experiments with innovating their teaching methods, using 3D scans and visualisation technology to enable active learning. 'It makes archaeological material more accessible. Especially when it comes to fragile materials, it allows nearly anybody to analyse them.'

As every year the Faculty of Archaeology bioarchaeology group has visited Schöningen Germany for field research.

Leiden archaeologists have set fire to a reconstructed Neolithic house in Horsterwold: all in the name of science. Studying the remains will help them understand present and future finds.

On Thursday January 19, 2017, Hayley Mickleburgh was invited to speak at the Dutch talkshow RTL Late Night. Here she talked about her research on so called 'body farms', where the decomposition of bodies is being investigated.

Gelderland Heritage and Leiden University’s Faculty of Archaeology have won the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award 2022 in the ‘research’ category with the Heritage Quest citizen science project. ‘Heritage Quest has shown that citizens can play an active role in protecting cultural heritage…

The acquisition and administration of the possessions of the “Teutonic House” in Utrecht, and its dependencies, in the Middle Ages until c.1600.

The opening and inauguration of the Visitors Centre, and the visitors trail on the site, are an important result of the Tell Balata Archaeological Park project that is jointly being implemented by the Palestinian Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, the Faculty of Archaeology of the University…

Lecture

On the 24th of November Aditi Mukherjee successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Confucianism has been a major force in the cultural history of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam for thousands of years, affecting the art, literature, science and politics of all these countries.

The MA in Middle Eastern Studies provides intensive and comprehensive training to prepare you for a range of careers requiring specialist language, cultural, or political knowledge.

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

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

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

The use of fire can tell us a lot about human evolution. Archaeologist Femke Reidsma has developed a more accurate technique to identify how our ancestors used fire. Existing archaeological studies will need to be revised. Reidsma’s study was published in Nature Scientific Reports on 2 November.

PhD defence

The Centre for Global Heritage and Development has been successful in applying for a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on the topic of threatened heritage at ICTO, the platform for innovation and education at Leiden University.

PhD defence

Overview of the Asia Programmes offered at Leiden University.

This project intends to provide an integrated linguistic assessment of the hypothesised migration route of the Tocharians.

LUCIS affiliated members are researchers outside Leiden University who are actively involved in the study of Islam and/or Muslim societies and who regularly participate in LUCIS activities. LUCIS affiliate membership offers possibilities to cooperate with LUCIS as well as network opportunities. Contact…

The first full-colour images of the cosmos from ESA's space telescope Euclid were presented today. Never before has a telescope been able to take such crystal-clear astronomical images of such a large part of the sky and so far into the deep universe. The five images illustrate Euclid's full potential;…

They call their team ‘The Walking Dead’: Leiden Egyptologists Lara Weiss, Huw Twiston Davies and Nico Staring. A fitting name for a group that conducts research into Saqqara, an Egyptian city of the dead. ‘We are trying to trace religious traditions. What did these mean for people’s lives and burying…

The impact of global connections and the formation of the Roman Empire (ca. 200-30 BC)

Of the 109 Spinoza Prizes that have been awarded since 1995, 26 have gone to researchers from Leiden University. The NWO Spinoza Prize is the highest Dutch award in science. The younger NWO Stevin grant goes to researchers who have achieved great success in the field of knowledge utilisation for society.…

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium series

Leiden bachelor's student of International Studies Thomas wrote a text that was read out this year in the UN Security Council by the Netherlands representative. How did he manage that?

Arts and culture

Inaugural lecture

Archaeologist Corinne Hofman wins the Distinguished Lorentz Fellowship 2018/19 for research into the changing world of indigenous peoples as a result of colonialism. “The perspective of indigenous communities is still lacking in most history books.

The bachelor programmes German Language and Culture, Classics, Dutch Language and Culture, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Religious studies and Linguistics have received the predicate top rated programme from the Keuzegids.

Six programmes in the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded the designation 'top programme' by the Keuzegids. These are the bachelor’s in German Language and Culture, Greek and Latin Language and Culture, Latin American Studies, Ancient Near East Studies, Religious Studies and Russian Studies.

The research article ‘The life history of an enslaved African’ is one of the top 20 read Archaeometry articles in the period of January 2017 to December 2018.

An overview of frequently asked questions

Recently, archeologists of Leiden University made an excavation in Oegstgeest, where they found a unique silver bowl from the first half of the seventh century as well as imported pottery and winebarrels. Thijs Porck, lecturer in Old English language and culture at Leiden University, places the Oegstgeest…

Dr. Cátia Antunes and prof. Jos Gommans both edited and contributed to this interesting book, that consists of articles that offers a new insight into the macro and micro worlds of the global Dutchman in Asia.

Turkic nomadic rulers established large empires in the Middle East and Asia between the 11th and 14th centuries. This project will explore the link between their political ideology and the production of art and literature, via the cultural heritage of five cities along the Silk Road: Kashgar, Samarkand,…

At Leiden University you can study Islam and Muslim societies within two Dutch-language BA and various MA programmes and specializations.

On the 24th of October, Nurenzia Yannuar successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Nurenzia on this achievement.

In May-June 2014. large scale excavations were executed in Kampen on a cemetery belonging to a Medieval infirmary (Geertruidengasthuis) by the municipality of Zwolle in cooperation with the Laboratory of Human Osteoarchaeology. During the course of 11 days, the BA and MA students from Leiden University…

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.

The Master’s in Korean Studies at Leiden University offers a unique opportunity to conduct graduate level research, on various aspects of pre-modern and contemporary Korea, and to spend a full academic year at a university in South Korea.

As a critical commemoration of its centenary, this book presents a mosaic of one hundred carefully curated fragments by expert authors, shedding light on politics, economy, society, culture, gender, and arts in a hundred years of Turkey.

The Master’s in Asian Studies at Leiden University is your opportunity to earn a specialised qualification from one of the leading centres for Asian studies in Europe.