3,451 search results for “ancient near east” in the Public website
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Analysing Roman cities with an ERC Advanced Grant
How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…
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Large Vidi subsidies for 5 humanities scholars
5 talented Leiden humanities scholars have received a Vidi research subsidy of 800.000 euros to set up or expand their own line of research.
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Angry tweeting and general laughter
This year the PhDs of the institute had their traditional day out (uitje) to The Hague. The last two years they had stayed in Leiden, so The Hague already seemed like quite the adventure. Indeed, it seems almost that as time progresses and more and more archives become digitized, history PhDs slowly…
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Funding for three new Humanities’ PhD candidates
Three new PhD candidates at the Faculty of Humanities will receive funding from the Programme Office Sustainable Humanities and NWO. The aim of the grant is to boost young talent within the humanities.
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Meet Louise van der Vlugt, Co-winner of the 'Best Thesis in Jewish Studies' Award
In December 2023, Louise van der Vlugt was announced as Co-Winner of the 'Best Thesis in Jewish Studies' Award. She sat down to answer some questions about her prize-winning BA Thesis.
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Cath prize for lectures in care homes
The Edisen Foundation has won the 2016 Mr. K.J. Cath prize. This student organisation set up by two Leiden students gives lectures in care homes.
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Start of reconstruction indigenous village in St. Vincent
In 2010, the remnants of a 16th century indigenous village were discovered in St. Vincent, on the construction terrain of the new International Argyle Airport.
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New material challenges 250 year old building principles
Researchers at FOM-institute AMOLF and the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) have developed a rubber rod with strange bending behaviours. Beyond a certain point, it bends more under decreasing pressure. This behaviour doesn’t fit our expectations and does not conform to secular laws that predict the…
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Call for Papers 'Epistemic Vices: Continuities and Discontinuities, 1600-2000'
Impartiality, objectivity, honesty, and accuracy are qualities that generations of scholars have regarded as necessary for the pursuit of scholarly inquiry. Philosophers call them epistemic virtues, because these virtues facilitate the pursuit of epistemic aims such as knowledge and understanding of…
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Vidi grant for seven researchers from Leiden University
From malaria parasites as a vaccine to how top-level bureaucrats reach their decisions: seven researchers from Leiden University have received a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This 800,000-euro grant will enable them to develop their own innovative line of research over the next five…
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Is there an easier way to collect taxes?
Tax collection has become highly complex and the system is creaking at the seams. Is there an easier way to collect taxes? This is the question raised by Rex Arendsen, Professor of Tax Law, in his inaugural lecture on 16 September.
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From solar panels to tables made from old jackets: University opens its doors on Heritage Open Days
The theme of the Heritage Open Days Leiden on 10 and 11 September is sustainability. At four University locations guides will talk about the history of the buildings and how they have been renovated. And there is a first: tours in sign language.
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The Golden Dawn verdict and the inescapable element of language
On 7 October, a court in Athens, Greece, convicted leaders of the far-right Golden Dawn party as directing a criminal organization. Marina Terkourafi, professor of Sociolinguistics, discusses the landmark ruling for the Leiden International Studies Blog.
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Analysing Roman cities with an ERC Advanced Grant
How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…
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2008 Culture and cognition of Palaeolithic hominins
The Palaeolithic period extends from the earliest stone tools (and in Europe, earliest occupation) to the beginning of the current warm period.
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Report LUCAS Conference Bodies Matter 15-16 April 2021
Over two days in the middle of April the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society hosted the virtual Bodies Matter conference. Almost two years in the making, the conference was an exciting and timely opportunity to discuss and debate histories, theories and practices of bodies.
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Prof. Bakels celebrates half-a-century scholarship at Leiden University
Prof. C. Bakels is an archaeobotanist who devoted most of her career researching farming, its (pre)history and influence on the landscape. Born in 1942, she got her first appointment as a lecturer at Leiden University in 1968. On Monday 16 April, we celebrated her 50th work anniversary.
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Historian Jeroen Duindam receives Austrian Cross of Honour for Arts and Sciences first class
On June 14th, Jeroen Duindam, Professor of History at the Faculty of Humanities, was awarded an exceptionally high distinction for his achievements in the field of Austrian history.
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Introducing: Hasan Colak
Hasan Colak is one of the two postdocs in Cátia Antunes’ ERC Research Project 'Fighting Monopolies'.
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Six NWO grants for FGW researchers: this is what the scientists are going to do
Six projects from the Faculty of Humanities recently received grants of up to 750,000 euros from the NWO Open Competition. Researchers involved tell how they will spend this money.
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'Nobody has determined yet what the body is capable of’
Nietzsche may well have criticised Spinoza, but even so, the two philosophers had more in common than we might think, according to young Romanian philosopher Razvan Ioan. PhD defence 1 November.
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Slavery research on the up
An international congress, lectures and a new book series and magazine. It’s a hot topic at the moment that attracts broad public interest. Researchers, from historians to legal experts, are bringing together their expertise in the Leiden Slavery Studies Association.
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A snapshot from Saqqara: 45 years of excavations
In the past, the Dutch community living in Cairo made an annual visit to the then Leiden-only mission to Saqqara. They would come out and have a nice picnic together with the excavation team and visit the monumental New Kingdom tombs. The current Leiden-Turin expedition would very much like to revive…
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Arabic papyri shed new light on origins of Islam
Research on papyri has provided new insights into the history of the origins of Islam. Petra Sijpesteijns’s book,'Shaping a Muslim State', is based on these ancient Arabic letters and documents. Her new research on a Viennese collection of untranslated papyri is expected to produce more discoveries.
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New technique makes it easier to determine how our ancestors used fire
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.
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Leiden2022: a science festival bursting with activities
Just a few weeks until a festival full of exciting science activities bursts into life in Leiden. From January the city will be European City of Science for 365 days. Many researchers are enthusiastic participants. ‘I see it as an opportunity to help people feel the joy of discovering something new…
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More focus on women in academia
For a month long, the Senate Chamber of Leiden University was reserved for portraits of women. The work of art showing a hundred unique portraits of female professors has now been put into storage, but the board of the University is taking measures to promote the image of women in science.
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Sword fighting in the name of science
Archaeologists from Leiden University cast replicas of Bronze Age European swords and used them in simulated fights. They wanted to find out more about prehistoric combat. Article published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on 25 March.
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KNAW Early Career Award for Alisa van de Haar: ‘I want to take a more positive approach to migration and multilingualism’
Alisa van de Haar is one of three humanities scholars to win a KNAW Early Career Award this year. The university lecturer of Ancient French Literature is receiving the award for her innovative research on multilingualism and migration. 'It would be nice to use this to set up a project with students.…
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Leiden University College: Another quality seal for one of Europe's top liberal arts and sciences programmes
For the eleventh time in a row, Leiden University’s unique liberal arts and sciences programme has been awarded the ‘Top Rated Programme’ quality seal by Keuzegids universiteiten 2024.
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€ 18.8 million grant for research into innovation processes in antiquity
Successful innovation requires more than technological progress alone. Every new concept must first be firmly anchored into an existing context. At least this is the hypothesis of Dutch classicists, working together in the National Research School in Classical Studies OIKOS. They intend to test this…
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ERC Starting Grant for Thijs Porck: 'Everyone loved Old English in the nineteenth century'
In the nationalist nineteenth century, people developed an interest in medieval language and literature. The study of medieval material in one’s own vernacular was thought to reveal a great national past. But why, then, was Old English studied by Germans, Danes, Italians and many other nationalities…
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Three ERC Advanced Grants for Leiden researchers
Archaeologist Frans Theuws, Buddhism specialist Jonathan Silk and mathematician Ronald Cramer have each been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million euros.
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Neanderthals knew what they were doing when it came to making the oldest known glue
Adhesives are an incredibly important part of every day life. They help hold together everything from shoes and mobile phones to satellites in space. But we didn’t invent adhesives: Neanderthals did, to make handles for stone tools over 191,000 years ago. Leiden researchers now found that Neanderthals…
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Where does this Inca language come from? Verb conjugations should provide some answers
When university lecturer Martine Bruil was on exchange in Ecuador as a teenager, she fell in love with the area's ancient languages. Now, more than 20 years later, she is starting a research project on the kinship of the language Awapit with the Quechua language that was spread by the Incas.
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Read about Middle Ages on new Leiden research blog
The Middle Ages are becoming increasingly more popular: just look at the popularity of such ‘medievalist’ TV series as Game of Thrones and Vikings, and let’s not forget popular re-enactments of medieval battles. Leiden University is home to many specialists of this fascinating period and this new blog…
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Zwammerdam boats harbour ‘wealth of knowledge’
Leiden University is participating in a project to reassemble Roman vessels from between 80 - 200 AD. The 'Zwammerdam ships' are already world famous in the world of archaeology, and guest researcher Tom Hazenberg hopes to extend this fame beyond its academic boundaries.
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Radio astronomers bypass disturbing Earth's atmosphere with new calibration technique
An international team of researchers led by astronomers from Leiden University (the Netherlands) has produced the first sharp radio maps of the universe at low frequencies. Thanks to a new calibration technique, they bypassed the disturbances of the Earth's ionosphere. They used the new method to study…
- Volume 15 (2020)
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Landscape Theory: Post-68 Revolutionary Cinema in Japan
On the 28th of September Go Hirasawa successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.
- Week 4: 25 January–1 February
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Leiden Law School
Leiden is the place for Law
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Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference : Breaking the Rules: Textual Reflections on Transgression
The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…
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Research
Our Institute’s research focuses on ‘global vulnerabilities and social resilience’. Specifically, we highlight three interconnected themes: diversity, sustainability, and digitalisation.
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Beacons of Freedom: Slave Refugees in North America, 1800-1860
This project applies a social-historical approach to examine and contrast various groups of African-American slave refugees who sought freedom within North America between 1800 and 1860. It innovatively distinguishes between different “spaces of freedom” for runaway slaves, namely sites of formal, semi-formal,…
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Guadeloupe
Between 1993 and 2000 the Faculty of Archaeology had a formal cooperation with the Service Régional de l’Archéologie de la Guadeloupe, Direction Regional des Affaires Culturelles (DRAC) and the then director André Delpuech. During that period surveys and excavations were carried out at a number of s…
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African Oral Literatures, new media and technologies
African oral literatures, new media and technologies: challenges for research and documentation
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Governance and Global Affairs
Knowledge that benefits society is the domain of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). FGGA provides high-quality interdisciplinary education on and research into social and governance issues such as terrorism, organisation of public administration, climate change and economic crises.
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Awards and Grants 2023
On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2023, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.
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Crisis and Critique Network
This network brings together scholars whose work explores how contemporary frameworks of crisis produce experiences of the present, rehash or disrupt established narratives of the past, and broker specific outlooks on the future. We collaborate in studying these crisis-scapes and exploring how they…