An interdisciplinary study of the Persian Period

Roderick Geerts, a PhD candidate of the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden, takes us on a short journey through the rich history of the Red Sea port of Berenike in Egypt.

University lecturer Tazuko van Berkel has obtained a Vidi grant of 800,000 euros. This will enable her to research the image of man that emerges from economic texts from ancient Greece.

Door het coronavirus is een groot deel van de economie stilgevallen. De regering heeft sommige activiteiten verboden, veel bedrijven hebben vrijwillig op de pauzeknop geduwd. Wie bepaalt wanneer we weer terugschakelen naar 'normaal' en hoe zou dat proces moeten verlopen?

Wat betekent belastinghervorming in de VS? Hoe groot is de invloed van belastingontwijkende multinationals op belastingconcurrentie in ontwikkelde en ontwikkelingslanden? En wat zijn de problemen met belastinguitgaven? Op 7 november vindt een GLOBTAXGOV-T20-seminar plaats op de Campus Den Haag van de…

Johan Christensen, universitair docent bij het Instituut Bestuurskunde, heeft 1,2 miljoen euro subsidie gekregen van de Research Council of Norway. Christensen is co-leider van een project genaamd INFLUEX dat de invloed van experts gaat onderzoeken. Naast Christensen maakt ook Valérie Pattyn van het…

In Renaissance Florence, humanists wrote Latin poems fashioning their city as the new Rome, and members of the Medici family as Roman rulers. How can we explain this practice?

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Over the last decades, the systematic investigation of urban settlements in Central-Tyrrhenian Italy led to the discovery of a growing number of contexts revealing both direct and indirect evidence of artisanal workshops. Such research commitment has yielded a vast amount of new data that greatly contribute…

Do you live in Egypt and have you always wondered about all the pharaonic heritage surrounding you? This spring NVIC organizes a beginner’s level, introductory course in Egyptology. In 6 richly illustrated lessons, the history of ancient Egypt will be brought to life, both chronologically as well as…

The chair group of Ancient and Medieval History at the Radboud University organizes a series of lectures that are held between February and June 2024. The exact dates and titles can be found in the programme below.

This month marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. NINO, the Language Museum, Things that Talk and the National Museum of Antiquities are seizing the opportunity to organise the first Week of Ancient Writing.

Scientific research at the molecular level on a collection of medieval skeletons from Norton Priory in Cheshire, United Kingdom, could help rewrite history after revealing they were affected by an unusual ancient form of the bone disorder, Paget’s disease. Osteoarchaeologist Carla Burrell, attached…

Deze week sluiten we het academisch jaar af met verschillende FGGA-studenten, waarin zij hun zomer- en toekomstplannen vertellen, maar ook terugblikken op het afgelopen jaar: ‘Ik vond het ontzettend prettig om weer terug te komen naar de fijne sfeer op Wijnhaven.’

Henk Versnel's work on ancient religion has been seminal. For his 80th birthday, a group of scholars assembled to celebrate and analyze his oeuvre.

In the world of Ancient Greece the interpretation of supernatural signs was a versatile tool to facilitate decision-making. This is the central hypothesis of the PhD dissertation of historian Kim Beerden. Defence on 14 February.

This PhD project studies immigrant groups in ancient Babylonia and aims at investigating their identities, socioeconomic status, and integration into an ancient multicultural society.

New sampling and analytical strategies give archaeologists a better understanding of the nutrition and survival of ancient populations. Publication in PLOS One.

The main focus of this research project is to investigate why people in Eastern Arabia chose to reuse ancient tombs and how this can be linked to collective memory.

The main purpose of DNAmarkerpoint is to better understand the ecology, evolution and biodiversity through the study of ancient- and modern DNA.

About 15 km to the south of the ancient city of Petra, archaeologists from the University of Leiden have discovered an impressive network of ancient water conservation measures and irrigated field systems.

In ancient times, the desert in the Udhruh region in Jordan was transformed into a green oasis. An intricate network of underground water channels was part of an ancient system of water management, storing water and preventing loss through evaporation. Archaeologist Mark Driessen found a new way to…

Voor zowel archeologen, paleontologen en geologen als vrijwilligers in de archeologie en paleontologie is het geen verrassing meer dat op de stranden van de Nederlandse kust fraaie vondsten gedaan kunnen worden. Vele artikelen, boeken, tentoonstellingen, congressen, lezingen, ‘zoekdagen’, krantenberichten,…

The circular economy is typically seen as the progressive alternative to our wasteful linear economy, where raw materials are used to make the products that feed today’s rampant consumerist hunger, which are then thrown away. In a fascinating article, archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers reflects on the recycling…

The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

In 2011, the Udhruh Archaeological Project was launched, bringing together teams of Jordanian and Dutch archaeologists to investigate the region and reconstruct ancient water harvesting techniques in the extremely arid landscape of Udhruh. Access to fresh water remains one of the most pressing global…

This historical study argues that the Mandaean religion originated under Sasanid rule in the fifth century, not earlier as has been widely accepted. It analyzes primary sources in Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic to clarify the early history of Mandaeism.

To what extent can Nietzsche's Amor Fati be seen as a Stoic concept?

“BABYLON” investigates the extent of the similarities between Babylonian and post-exilic forms of cultic and social organization and explores the question how Babylonian models could have influenced the restoration effort in Jerusalem.

An international team of astronomers, including Leiden PhD student Elia Pizzati, has observed several ancient quasars that, surprisingly, appear to be floating alone in the early universe (less than a billion years after the Big Bang). Until now, astronomers, based on models, assumed that quasars are…

Dr Bleda Düring deemed it was time for an archaeological approach on the imperialisation of Assyria. ‘While there are lot of archaeological studies of Assyrian sites, they are not really trying to address this broader picture of imperialism and how this imperialisation actually worked.’ These imperialisation…

For hundreds of years, children in Ancient Egypt learned to read using The Satire of the Trades, a text in which a father gives advice to his son through descriptions of different professions. PhD candidate Judith Jurjens investigated how this worked in practice.

This thesis studies the relationship of the town al-Fusṭāṭ, located at the southern end of the Nile delta in Egypt, and its hinterland in the period between the town’s foundation in A.D. 641 and the arrival of the Abbasids in 750.

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…

A unique archeological find near Tombos in Northern Sudan. Archaeologist Sarah Schrader from Leiden University, working with a team of international researchers, has discovered a grave of a ritually buried horse that is over 3000 years old. Both the grave and the skeleton are in perfect condition. The…

How can theories about modern disinformation help to understand how Roman documentary fictions functioned?

An international team of researchers, involving members from the ERC Synergy project NEXUS 1492 based at the Leiden University, the Universities of Oklahoma, Copenhagen and York reveal challenges when studying ancient microbiomes in a recent issue of Scientific Reports.

Since the adoption of agriculture people have cultivated fields. The project concerns all kinds of aspects related to raising crops.

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

How were ideas about politics and society distributed in ancient China? Hilde De Weerdt, Professor of Chinese History, investigates this using new digital methods. We speak with her about networks, big data and digital humanities.

Shining a new light on the Roman world

LUCSoR has chairs in Comparative Religion, Islam in the West, Christianity, and Judaism. Main areas of expertise include ancient Mesopotamian religions, the Enlightenment, Islam in the West, and new spiritual movements.

In several Mediterranean regions archaeological sites have been mapped by fieldwalking surveys, producing large amounts of data. These legacy site-based survey data represent an important resource to study ancient settlement organization. Methodological procedures are necessary to cope with the limits…