Search - Leiden University

Keep it clean and clear – and mice won’t come near Announcement - 19 January 2026
Facility, Organisation

Keep it clean and clear – and mice won’t come near Announcement - 3 February 2026
Facility, Organisation

400,000-Year-Old Mystery Unearthed Near Rome News - 16 October 2025
Construction work at Casal Lumbroso, on the outskirts of Rome, led to the discovery of a fossilised elephant tusk, and soon after, the remains of a 400,000-year-old elephant. A newly published study, led by Enza Spinapolice and Francesca Alhaique uncovered traces showing that early humans had scavenged…

Keep it clean and clear – and mice won’t come near Announcement - 11 December 2025

Word by word, the first modern Japanese-Dutch dictionary is nearing completion News - 25 November 2025
It was more than twenty years ago that the plan for a Japanese-Dutch dictionary was born. Now it contains over 65,000 words, and completion is tentatively coming into view. Dictionary makers Oscar Veltink and Hetty Geerdink-Verkoren talk about their enthusiasm for this decades-long mammoth task.

Who was the owner of the drowned books near Texel? 'It must be someone who travelled a lot' News - 16 March 2023
When hobby divers revisited a nearly 400-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Texel, they discovered more than 1,000 objects in wooden boxes. Eight years later, postdoc Janet Dickinson used recovered books to compile a profile of the mysterious owner.

Motion of stars near Milky Way's central black hole is only predictable for few hundred years News - 13 September 2023
The orbits of 27 stars orbiting closely around the black hole at the center of our Milky Way are very chaotic. As a result, researchers cannot predict with confidence where they will be in about 462 years. ‘That is astonishingly short,’ says astronomer Simon Portegies Zwart who collaborated on the r…

Rites of Passage in Ancient Near Eastern Rituals Event - 20 May 2025
Middle East Studies Lecture

Archaeology alumna Elizabeth Hicks awarded first runner-up in thesis competition News - 15 February 2022
Elizabeth Hicks won first runner-up in the Netherlands Institute of the Near East (NINO) MA thesis 2021 competition at the end of January.

Graduation Ceremony Livestream
We are excited to bring the joy and celebration of our graduation ceremony to everyone, near and far. Whether you’re a family member, friend, or supporter who cannot attend in person, we invite you to be follow this ceremony via our livestream. Join us online on July 4th, 2025, at 14:00 to be part of…