The NINO Annual Meeting is a gathering of advanced students and researchers in the field of Near Eastern studies – spanning antiquity to the early modern period. It offers a lively forum for sharing current projects, discussing new ideas, and connecting with colleagues across disciplines. This year’s event is co-organized by the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University, the National Museum of Antiquities and the Netherlands Institute for the Near East.

Theme

This year’s theme, Food and Ritual in the Ancient to Early Modern Near East, highlights the vital role of food in religious practice, social organization, and cultural identity. From offerings and feasts to daily meals and symbolic consumption, food provides a unique lens through which to understand ritual practice and lived experience in the Near East.

The proverb “you are what you eat,” although seen as a cliché, has inspired significant research and influenced our dietary habits. Throughout history, from hunter-gatherer societies to empires, food has played a vital role in shaping our economies and environments. To survive, people require daily intakes of calories and nutrients. How societies gathered, grew, and processed food has always been essential to our understanding of earlier cultures in history and archaeology.

As part of the NINO Annual Meeting on January 29^th, 2026, there will also be a tasting of recreated ancient recipes from the Near East.

Programme

10:15-10:30 | Introduction Food and Ritual by Joanita Vroom (Leiden University) and Miriam Müller (Leiden University)

10:30-11:15 | Keynote Feasting to Death by Susan Pollock (FU Berlin)

11:15-11:45 | Coffee break

11:45-12:45 | Lectures

• Breaking Bread with Monsters: Commensality and Identity in Mesopotamian Literature by Karen Sonik (Auburn University/NINO)
• Consuming the God’s/Gods’ Most Holy Food by Jonathan Stökl (Leiden University)
• A ‘Sacred Caravanserai’ along the Jordan River? New Perspectives on Tell Damiyah’s Wayside Shrine by Diederik Halbertsma (NINO), Lucas Petit (RMO) and Zeidan Kafafi (Yarmouk University)

12:45-14:30 | Lunch break

14:30-15:30 | Lectures

• Food and Ritual in the Cult of Serapis: Religious Syncretism in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt by Heba Hassan (Alexandria National Museum)
• A Temporality of Meals in Roman and Late-Antique Egypt by Sofie Remijsen (UvA)
• Bread Stamps: Ritual Practice and Charitable Donations in the Early Byzantine Near East by Joost Snaterse (Radboud University/Leiden University)

15:30-16:30 | Lightning session

• Mesopotamian Fish Skin: Between Ritual and Material Reality by Elisa Palomino (IIAS)
• The Origins of Dietary Laws in the Hebrew Bible: A Zooarchaeological Approach to Food Practices in Iron Age Judah by Cees Stavleu (Independent Researcher)
• Phrygian Feasting? A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Faunal Remains from a Large Hall in Kerkenes, Central Anatolia by Laurien Folkerts (University of Groningen)
• Banqueting and Gift-Giving in the Achaemenid Empire by Aleksander Stypczynski (Utrecht University)
• Fine Food and Fragrances from the Near East and Egypt in the Harbor of Piraeus by Michela Piccin (North-West University, South Africa/NINO)
• Farming, Eating and Drinking in Ta’as: An Initial Study from an Early Islamic Middle Euphrates Rural Site by Weston Kennedy (Leiden University)

16:30-17:00 | NINO Thesis Prizes ceremony: award by Miriam Müller (NINO), presentation by winners & closing

17:00-17:15 | Introduction Tasting Historical Recipes by Joanita Vroom (Leiden University)

17:30-18:30 | Reception and tasting

19:00-21:00 | Evening event Voedsel en Feest in het Oude Middellandse Zeegebied by Suzan van de Velde (RMO)

Throughout the day

Posters by Sebastiaan Berntsen & Carolien van Zoest (NINO), Andrés Martín García de la Cruz (NVIC/NINO), Daan Nijssen (EOL) and Evangelia Vichou (Leiden University)

Practical information

• Date: Thursday 29 January 2026
• Time:
  • 10:00-17:00 hrs (day event; main language: English)
  • 17:00-18:30 hrs (reception and tasting)
  • 19:00-21:00 hrs (evening event; main language: Dutch)
• Location: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Leiden), Leemanszaal
• Organisation: Joanita Vroom (Leiden University), Miriam Müller (NINO), Suzan van de Velde (RMO)
• Admission: free; please register here.
• If you wish to cancel your registration, please use the button in your confirmation email so we may offer your seat to another participant.