The Syair Tabut, an overlooked scroll This long overlooked scroll, the Malay language Syair Tabut, is the only eyewitness account of the last Muharram commemorations in Singapore in 1864, a practice still banned to this day. Guest author • August 07, 2019
The cartography of Captain James Cook It must have been quite the sight. On the 3rd of June 1769 – now 250 years ago – Englishmen were on the island of Tahiti looking through high-quality telescopes to watch a rare natural phenomenon: the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. Guest author • June 02, 2019
The Ricklefs collection at Leiden University Libraries. Some material features. Manuscripts are not only about content. The leather bindings, the kinds of paper, and the ink used may tell us stories without words – material talks. Dr. Dick van der Meij will introduce us to some Javanese manuscripts Guest author • May 13, 2019
A fifteenth-century manuscript from The Hague “Dit boeck hoert toe den susteren van sinte agnieten binnen scrave[n] haghe van sinte augustijns oerde” (This book belongs to the sisters of St. Agnes of the Augustinian order in The Hague) Guest author • April 29, 2019
The Imperially Inscribed Illustrations of Cotton Cotton production and Chinese imperial poems in blue ink: a new set of stone rubbings in the Leiden collection Guest author • March 29, 2019
Dutch nationalism and the story of the Portengen manuscript The 19th-century Portengen manuscript, recently donated to Leiden University Libraries, is a prime example of a text that shows how nationalism stimulated the self-consciousness of middle-class families. Guest author • January 29, 2019
The first Japanese love letter by Sonogi to Von Siebold now discovered "Reading your letters, I recall your face and long for the days gone by." Guest author • December 04, 2018
The elusive Panji pops up in Leiden Who is Panji, and what exactly is a Panji tale? Guest author • November 19, 2018
To steal a book A unique collection of Chinese underground poetry attracts all kind of visitors... Guest author • October 04, 2018