NEARCH aims to explore the different dimensions of public participation in contemporary archaeology and uncover new ways to work and collaborate within this field of expertise.

“The ideas from society should be heard in order to narrow the gap between government and the people”. These words from Kwagjin Choi, Korean diplomat and co-architect of South Korea’s People Diplomacy sum up why, in the view of this guest speaker at ISGA, foreign ministries should pay much more attention…

Matthias Haentjens and Ross Spence participated in Warsaw conference and PhD workshop on 16 & 17 November 2018.

The Iraqi archaeological site of Nimrud was recently recaptured from IS. The site has been severely damaged. The question now is, what to do with it? Should it be restored? Bleda Düring spoke with Trouw about this complex issue.

The arrival of Columbus to the Caribbean in 1492 marked a milestone in world history. In both the European and the indigenous world, a set of economic, political and hierarchical networks and relations were defined, structured and changed. These changes affected the indigenous population at different…

In this provocative study, Shumon T. Hussain engages with the long-standing issue of French-Anglophone research conflicts in Palaeolithic archaeology.

Investigating domestic crafts and subsistence activities through experiments and material analysis

This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination…

The Faculty of Archaeology was honored by a visit by the Ambassador the Republic of Cyprus. Ambassador Frances-Galatia Lanitou Williams had heard of the Faculty's research projects that currently take place in Cyprus and wanted to learn more about the archaeological activities.

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, equal opportunities for women worldwide, empowerment, and gender equality take centre stage. For years, the role of women in the past has been nearly invisible. Four archaeologists reflect on this inequality of focus, from hunter-gatherers in the palaeolithic to…

TruLife applies lessons from the study of long-term urban traditions, exemplified by pre-Columbian Maya tropical cities, to present-day sustainable urban design.

Archaeological and related essays on the Jordan Valley in honour of Gerrit van der Kooij on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

Anyone who follows the Faculty of Archaeology on social media must have noticed that something changed in September. Videos on research projects, interviews with staff and students, and embracing memes: the content has become more varied and engaging. We speak with students Grace Alonzo and Thomas Prins,…

Palaeography of an ancient nomadic writing culture

An interdisciplinary study of the Persian Period

An Ancient Egyptian System of Workmen’s Identity Marks

On Friday 10 November 2017 the annual Janneke Fruin-Helb Scholarship was awarded to alumna Matilda Sebire. She graduated in the master's specialisation in Material Culture Studies.

Archaeology has always been at the forefront of innovation. Now, an inventive collaboration between archaeologists Tuna Kalayci and Alex Brandsen brings together the winning combination of robotic technology with an archaeological AI. While an impressive new step in the archaeological technology, this…

The Heritage Quest archaeology project has been nominated for the Heritage Volunteer Prize. In the project volunteers are looking for archaeological remains such as burial mounds, Celtic fields and cart tracks. The project leaders are Leiden University, Landscape Heritage Utrecht and Gelderland Heritage.…

The Leiden Faculty of Archaeology has recently launched its own research blog. In the Leiden Archaeology Blog, our researchers share their activities with peers and the general public.

During the Masterclass “Archaeology from the Sky”, participating students have used small drones to acquire aerial photos from the Italian landscape of Molise. With sometimes amazing results.

Our master’s alumna Marie Kolbenstetter was recently awarded a NWO subsidy for a PhD in the Humanities. With this funding she will be able to continue her master’s thesis research on the archaeology of Honduras at our Faculty. ‘I’m really happy to have my own project. This has been two years in the…

The Udhruh archaeological project in Jordan was recently visited by Diala Dabbas for her program ‘Helwa ya Donya’ (which translates to ‘Beautiful Universe’). Helwa ya Donya is one of the most viewed television programs in Jordan and deals with many Jordanian topics, one of which is the current research…

The research addresses the question of “what is the impact of geopolitical changes to the pivot states in the Middle East? With special focus on Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.”

A mix of data research, artificial intelligence and archaeology led to lively discussions on 31 January. On that day the unique event 'AI & Data Science @ Archaeology' took place in which the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP), SAILS and the Faculty of Archaeology joined forces.

On 6 June, Armin Cuyvers lectured students and staff of the University of Nairobi on EU law and comparative regional integration

Students of the Leiden University Faculty of Archaeology once again explore the archaeology of Oss between April and May of 2023. New areas along the Gewandeweg will be investigated. The local news platform DTV Nieuws featured an article about it.

This coming June and July, excavations will continue at the Aguas Buenas archaeological site.

Local perceptions, attachments and knowledge are often not considered in the methodology of archaeology when researching a site, argues PhD-candidate Tomomi Fushiya. She proposes a broader integration of local perceptions in an archaeological narrative. PhD-defence on December 2.

A mix of data research, artificial intelligence and archaeology led to lively discussions on 31 January. On that day the unique event 'AI & Data Science @ Archaeology' took place in which the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP), SAILS and the Faculty of Archaeology joined forces.

On May 8, all research support professionals of the Leiden Research Support Network were welcomed at the Faculty of Archaeology for an inspiring event.

On 12 September 2019, Michiel Rhoen defended his thesis 'Big Data, Big Risks, Big Power Shifts: Evaluating the General Data Protection Regulation as an instrument of risk control and power redistribution in the context of big data'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. G.J. Zwenne and Prof.…

La Grande Roche is one of the rare archaeological sites that preserved a long sequence of deposits formed at the time of contact between late Neandertals and early Homo sapiens.

Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to the 20th century A.C. A Case Study from Boeotia, Central Greece (2003)

ASLU 13

Two graves dating from the 7th century have been discovered during an archaeological excavation in Leiden. One of the graves was found by a student of Archaeology during the first-year fieldwork project that took place at the same time as the excavation. The well-preserved graves are interesting because…

ASLU 29 Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen, Valentina Raffa (2015)

A Functional Analysis of Pre-Columbian Shell and Stone Artefacts from Anse à la Gourde and Morel, Guadeloupe, FWI

Eine Analyse materieller Kultur römischer Kolonien in der Mikroregion von Suessa Aurunca, Minturnae und Sinuessa

A contextual approach to anthropomorphic figurines in the Pavlovian (Central Europe, 29-24 kyr BP) (2001)

The Jordan Times interviewed professor Peter Akkermans about this research on ancient tombs in Jordan's Eastern Desert. “The evidence of this flourishing culture can be seen, among other things, in the diverse and complex burial record which we are currently investigating.”

In the course 'From Ceramics to Plastics: The Mediterranean in 12 objects' students were taught to work with 3D scanning technologies. One of the underlying reasons to introduce students to this technology was to teach them to reproduce objects. ‘More and more archaeological information is stored in…

On 8 June the Faculty of Archaeology and the Department of Antiquity and Cultural Heritage (DACH) of the Palestine Ministry of Tourism and Antiquity signed an agreement in Ramallah on the West Bank. The aim of the agreement is renewed and sustainable co-operation in the field of archaeology.

When you want to analyse big quantities of archaeological data, you run into the issue that searching through excavation reports is extremely time-consuming. If only there existed a search engine specifically focused on querying these reports… But wait, work on an archaeological search engine focused…

The School for Advanced Research organised an onlne conversation between Dr Bleda Düring and his co-editors of the publication Archaeologies of Empire and the editors of the publication Imperial Formations. Watch the resulting video.

Scientific methods and techniques have been employed in archaeological research since the very birth of the discipline. It is impossible to imagine modern archaeology without this expertise in archaeological sciences. These archaeological sciences take centre stage in the new temporal exhibition at…

The end of January arrived together with welcome guests from Saxion University of Applied Sciences. As a part of their two-day-long visit to South Holland, almost 100 Saxion archaeology students visited our Faculty.