leidenanthropologyblog

Professor Pieter ter Keurs is Professor of the Anthropology of Material Culture at Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden university and Head of the Department of Collections and Research at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden

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Culture: Public or Private?

Looking at the present situation in many countries we have the impression that culture, museums and heritage have always been state financed affairs. Yet, historical reality might offer us a different picture.

Pieter ter Keurs • April 01, 2016

Approaching Carthage: Image and Reality

The Byrsa, the hill where the center of ancient Carthage was situated, is not very impressive. The image of Carthage in European collective memory is. Or is it not?

Pieter ter Keurs • June 12, 2014 • 2 comments

Carthage: The image of a lost city

An exhibition always poses problems of representation. In the case of the lost city of Carthage: stereotypes and a lack of information. By its upcoming exhibition the National Museum of Antiquities seeks to shed new light on the Tunisian Unesco site.

Pieter ter Keurs • March 12, 2014 • 2 comments

A war of images

We live in a world of images, more than ever before. That statement is still often heard, but we can doubt its historical correctness.

Pieter ter Keurs • September 09, 2013

Mummies and coffins in Leiden

Somehow mummies and coffins have always fascinated people. Why? From the moment archaeologists excavated many of them, mummies and coffins started lives that were not originally intended.

Pieter ter Keurs • June 03, 2013 • 2 comments

Moving heritage: a political issue

We are inclined to 'sacralize' heritage, as if the importance of certain objects has always been seen and recognized and has always been beyond discussion. But meanings attributed to certain objects have always been subject to change.

Pieter ter Keurs • April 22, 2013