The Museums, Collections & Society research programme is led by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Archaeology and aims to promote collection-based research, stimulate Leiden education in this field, and raise ethical questions regarding the collections’ origins.

Doctoral research on recent developments in museological practices by “critical” curators, interventionist artists, and personnel initiatives, focusing on ‘queering’ as an entrance point to broader intersectional issues; resulting in a report on the ‘Queer Baseline’ (to be launched in 2020), a popular…

Leiden and The Hague are home to a wide range of museums and collections.

Silk Road Virtual Museum - A virtual museum of the art and culture of the regions that lay on the trade routes between Europe and Asia, popularly known as the ‘Silk Road’.

Travel back in time and learn about how the University has changed over the centuries.

All over Europe you will find ethnographic museums with large collections of indigenous objects from Latin America. These collections shaped the image of native populations in the European mind. An ERC Starting Grant allows Dr Martin Berger to look at the bigger picture, contextualizing individual collections…

Investigating the relations between Tupi Indigenous Knowledge, Museum Collections and the Dutch Colonization of Brazil

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

Research on the global field of museums, heritage, commemoration, consumption and material culture

This study relates the vicissitudes of the Amerindian peoples who lived or still inhabit the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, from the earliest occupants, ca. 8000 BC, until at present.

The type of question that museums ask about objects in their collection influences conversations between parents and children. Researchers from Leiden University and Naturalis Biodiversity Center studied how questions influence conversations. Publication in Visitor Studies on 2 July.

This project involves research into the oeuvre of the Sundanese sculptor Iko, who has worked for the Catholic mission in Java and has carved sculptures for a chapel and church in Ganjuran. The images were designed by the Catholic layman Jos Schmutzer and are characterized by a fusion in style and symbolism…

On the 23rd of September, George Saad successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates George on this achievement!

This book explores the intellectual and cultural flows between Asia and Europe which occurred during – and were formative of – the political and social changes of the first half of the twentieth century.

In an article by the New York Times, cultural heritage law specialist Evelien Campfens discusses the difficulties surrounding the ownership of looted art.

This study attempts to understand how indigenous community institutions pose an important role in sustainable community-based development, including the integration between local culture and development.

Course

Visualizing the internal structure is a crucial step in acquiring knowledge about the origin, state, and composition of cultural heritage artifacts. Among the most powerful techniques for exposing the interior of cultural heritage objects is computed tomography (CT), a technique that computationally…

Sharing Collections and Connecting Histories

Promotor: Prof.dr. L.J. Slikkerveer

In times of hardships or crisis, local people know how to deal with it using their resourcefulness. Although efforts are sometimes made by the government to help them, they are fully aware that community support is at least equally important.

The knowledge held by indigenous people is essential if you want to study the history or the language of a particular region. Leiden archaeologists and linguists are now looking for ways of involving local people more systematically in their research.

In this dissertation a large corpus of letter signs and texts gathered during fieldwork in Niger, and to a lesser extent Mali and Burkina Faso is used to show the graphemic diversity of the traditional script of the Tuaregs, tifinagh, and to analyze the orthographic system.

This research combines archaeological, archaeometric and ethnohistorical research to study the organisation of settlement space and residence rules among the Taino Indians during the Late Ceramic Age (AD 1000-1492).

Are you thinking about studying Arts and Culture: Art History and Museum Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Op donderdag 20 februari organiseert Universitaire Bibliotheken Leiden (UBL) een workshop over prenten en tekeningen uit de collecties. In de workshop toont conservator Jef Schaeps bijzondere, bekende en onbekende prenten en tekeningen. Sommige behoren tot de grootste kunstschatten van de bibliotheek…

Mariana de Campos Françoso and Amy Strecker published a new article in the International Journal of Cultural Property last week entitled 'Caribbean Collections in European Museums and the Question of Returns'.

The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Tinde van Andel, extraordinary professor of History of botany and gardens, studies these collections.

Book by Dr. Mariana Françozo resulting from her research into the collection of count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, governor of the Dutch colony in Northeastern Brazil between 1637 and 1644.

Een uitbreiding van de NIMAR collectie van de Universitaire bibliotheken Leiden.

Workshop

In this Yearbook you will find some fascinating examples of what was done in 2021, not only by ourselves, but also by our international colleagues.

Bringing Dominican indigenous collections back to the community

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. As in previous years the LUCDH received a large number of excellent grant applications for Research and Personal Development funds. Congratulations to the recipients of this year's research award…

Provenance and distribution of raw materials

The Museums, Collections & Society (MCS) group consists of staff members, all of whom have a strong link to the Museums and Collections programme of the Faculty of Humanities and the Heritage and Museum programme of the Faculty of Archaeology.

On the occassion of the appearance of new drone footage of indigenous groups living isolated in the Amazon rainforest, Meliam Gaspar was interviewed by RTL Nieuws. She spoke about the dangers these people face due to the encroaching modern world.

The Executive Board has appointed Pieter ter Keurs as professor of Museums, Collections, and Society as of 1 September 2019. The chair will be part of LUCAS (Faculty of Humanities) and is a collaborative effort of the Faculty of Archaeology and the Faculty of Humanities. Ter Keurs has his roots in…

The Sundanese people, the largest ethnic group in West Java, have been using traditional medicine for a long time. Known as ubar kampung, Sundanese indigenous knowledge, beliefs and practices of traditional medicine are based on local people’s knowledge and use of Medicinal, Aromatic, and Cosmetic (MAC)…

What do you do with a museum collection full of individual white Nobel laureates at a time when diversity, inclusion and teamwork reign supreme? Ad Maas, professor by special appointment, and researcher Hilbrand Wouters have been awarded an NWO Museum grant to answer that question.

Representatives of the Andean Community (Comunidad Andina/CAN) and its Member States met in Quito, Ecuador last month and approved a decision creating the ‘Andean Committee of Government Authorities on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.’

The Museum enjoys the highest reputation internationally