It is difficult to imagine a society other than a hierarchical nation-state. This is in part because we neglect alternative forms from the past, argues archaeologist Lewis Borck in the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology.

Christopher Green defended his thesis on 26 February 2020

Recently, Dr Gül Aktürk Hauser took up the position as Assistant Professor at the department of Heritage and Society. Originally an architect, she got caught up in the study of historical vernacular buildings in northeastern Turkey. Now her focus lies on the impact of climate change on cultural heri…

Learn about current approaches and ethical issues in heritage management and experience some of these in daily practice.

The project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space’ investigates the histories of various LGBT+ archives in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan

The focus of this programme is the inter-community social relationships and transformations of island networks in the Lesser Antilles across the historical divide.

Grassroots heritage initiatives and community engagement

In the EU brochure 'Creative Europe: rediscovering our cultural heritage' 15 successful heritage projects are presented. Among these projects is NEARCH, in which staff members of the Faculty of Archaeology participated.

A cultural delegation from Taiwan has presented 175 books and journals to Leiden University. The gift is meant as thanks for all the research carried out by the university on the subject of the indigenous peoples of Formosa, as Taiwan was called in the past.

A Centre for Global Heritage will be set up at Leiden University, that integrates the unique global breadth and quality of academic expertise at the University and the Leiden Museums with the global infrastructure of practical consultancy expertise built up over the past years by the Centre for International…

Publication of Johann Natterer's (1787-1843) word lists of Amazonian languages.

The research aims to understand how did Cuban and Dominican landscape encapsulate historical conceptual transformations about human –nature spiritual interaction after the Spanish conquest? More specifically, what are the present day cultural associations with Cuban and Dominican natural landscape?…

An Honours Class about the ostensibly unrecognisable worlds of insular Southeast Asia teaches students a fundamental piece of wisdom:

The project will create a digital platform to document and disseminate the knowledge contained in the Reverse Tonindeye Codex (Nuttall) and its relation with the history of the Iya Nacuaa Teyusi Ñaña “Lord 8 Deer Jaguar Paw” in both Mixtec and Spanish. The codex and the history of this 12th century…

A far-reaching understanding of human behaviour is necessary to get to grips with conflicts in society and to encourage parties to meet each other halfway. Psychologists, anthropologists and political scientists from Leiden are making invaluable contributions to that understanding. You can find out…

Urban development and lack of appropriate management has been threatening the archaeological site of Tell Balata. In order to save it from further destruction, in 2010 the Tell Balata Archaeological Park project was started.

When did the Mali Empire disintegrate? What does the Sunjata heritage demonstrate about the political situation after 1600?

A mere day after setting foot ashore in the Bahamas on October 13th 1492, Christopher Columbus notes the broad foreheads of the inhabitants of the Americas. These permanently altered cranial shapes are deliberately created through the application of pressure to the head of the infant in the first years…

War and terrorism overshadow interest in the pre-Islamic heritage of the Arabic peninsula. The new Leiden Centre for the Study of Ancient Arabia aims to make the general public more aware of the ancient history of this region.

New publication reviews Dutch colonial sources on the Indigenous Brazilian Tapuia people: ‘For them the Dutch were another piece on the political chess board’

Drones are proving to be a good means of mapping man-made changes in the landscape. Geophysicist Till Sonneman and his colleagues (archaeology) are experimenting with drones in inaccessible areas of the Caribbean.

Some examples of AI-research done at Leiden.

Two short documentaries by Till F. Sonnemann highlight the work conducted by Leiden archaeologists on Hispaniola as part of the Nexus1492 project.

We deeply cherish our natural and cultural World Heritage, so it seems; when historical monuments and sites are destroyed by war or natural disaster, we are mourning collectively. But what if this World Heritage status is not just a preservation label, but a smokescreen for social and political conflicts…

The newly opened Culture Arcade exhibition is a place where cultural heritage and video games come together. It is co-organized and curated by the VALUE Foundation of which Faculty staff members Aris Politopoulos and Csilla Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke are part of, together with the Prince Claus Fund.

Meet the people behind the Leiden University Europe Hub.

Meet the people behind the Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) programme.

Heritage Quest is a large-scale citizen science project in the field of archaeology that allows anyone to contribute to scientific research. It is the first large-scale archaeological citizen science project in The Netherlands and one of the few of its kind in the world. As part of the Cultural Heritage…

The Social Citizenship and Migration group is formed by a diverse group of researchers from different faculties (Governance and Global Affairs, Law, Humanities, and Social Science) within Leiden University.

Escritura de Ñuu Dzaui

How and to what extent the historic house (re-)constructs identity through image-making in China.

The aim of this research is the systematic analysis of the wisdom coined by Nahua people of Mexico, based on the historical sources and archaeological evidence, but also in the knowledge developed by contemporary indigenous communities and the contributions of indigenous scholars.

On 11 April 2024, Sophie Starrenburg, Assistant Professor at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, organised a workshop on ‘Climate Change and Cultural Heritage: Moving from Heritage Loss to Reparation’ at Tilburg Law School.

The Cell Observatory is run by several people some of which have multiple roles. To identify whom to contact for what issue please refer to the list below

The Heritage Sector at a Crossroads: The way of Intersectionality. This project investigates how heritage institutions can achieve inclusion and accessibility within their organization, collection, and exhibition spaces that meets the breadth of demands placed by today’s “critical visitors.” Fifteen…

Mexico, between 500 B.C. and A.D. 900

The LDE Centre for Global Heritage and Development has interviewed Dr Maaike de Waal about the new publication of which she is one of the editors. 'Living (World) Heritage Cities explores how World Heritage Cities are dealing with the preservation of their living heritage, with all the challenges and…

Together with four European partner universities heritage specialist Dr Monique van den Dries has been granted an Erasmus+ project (EU-CUL) by the European Commission. This project sets up a unique cooperation between educational scientists and academic heritage specialists. It will study how universities…

The MultiGreen project is a collaboration with NWO and CAS. The partners from the Dutch NWO side are the University of Leiden and University Wageningen. The partner from the Chinese CAS is the Institute of Urban Environment and the Institute of Geographic Sciences.

The language learning resource centre unites all language teaching professionals working at Leiden University: teachers and researchers at the LUCL, ATC, LUCAS, LIAS, and ICLON. You can find a list of them, ordered by language and/or role, in the menu on the left.

How can heritage institutions make their organisations, collections and exhibitions more inclusive and accessible? University lecturer Eliza Steinbock will investigate this using a NWO Smart Culture grant.

LIAS is comprised of three research schools with expertise in different areas:

Overview of the Leiden Asia staff per area or country.

This is the team of LAPP:

PhD candidate Magda Pucci studied indigenous music in Brazil. She and her group Mawaca travelled through the Amazon and played with peoples there such as the Paiter Suruí, Kayapó, Ikolen-Gavião and the Huni-Kuin. PhD defence on 19 March.

Violent conflicts all over the world pose a great threat. Not only to the region’s inhabitants, but also to the cultural heritage in the area. This is the subject of the Europe Lecture in The Hague on 13 June.