Prof.dr. Leonard V. Rutgers is an archaeologist and historian of religion. At Utrecht University he holds a chair in Late Antiquity. He currently directs the Genetic Legacies Project. This interdisciplinary project aims to shed new light on the history of Jewish migration to Europe in the period from 0-1500 on the basis of newly-generated genetic data. The project is being conducted in close collaboration with David Reich of Harvard Medical School, Ron Pinhasi of Vienna University, and a large group of researchers from across Europe, Israel, the US and Canada. The preliminary results are groundbreaking. Further publications are in progress, including a book-length study, to be published with Cambridge U.P.
Over the course of his career, Rutgers has led numerous interdisciplinary archaeological fieldwork projects, including The Villa Torlonia Jewish Catacombs Project, The Rise of Christianity: A New Interdisciplinary Approach Project, The3D Digital Imaging Project and The Reconfiguring Diaspora Project. That research resulted in publications in Nature and the Journal of Archaeological Science, amongst others, that have attracted considerable international attention. In his work Rutgers is particularly interested in the history of migration, Diaspora studies, historical demography, the dynamics of intergroup relations, especially those involving religious minorities, identity formation, quantification, language use, epigraphy, heritage managment and archaeological ethics, and in the analysis of rhetorical strategies used to pidgeonhole "the Other."
Further projects focus on 3D imagining and research in the field of digital humanities. Work includes engagment with the PEACE Portal (Portal of Epigraphy, Archaeology, Conservation and Education on Jewish Funerary Culture-- an initiative of O.P. Saar) as well as the development of An Interactive Geo-Spatial Platform for Modelling Jewish Historical Migration--a FAIR IT project in collaboration with the Digital Humanities Lab at Utrecht University.
Public Humanities
Rutgers is an active popularizer of scientific research. In addition to having written a popular weekly column in the Dutch Financial Times from 2015-2018, so far he has published three popular books entitled, respectively, Subterranean Rome: In Search of the Roots of Christianity in the Catacombs of the Eternal City (2000), De klassieke wereld in 52 ontdekkingen (2018; a more general book on the ancient world) which won the Homerus prize for best book in classics in 2019, is a bestseller and Israel on the Tiber. Jewish Life in Ancient Rome (2023; in Dutch, translations into English and Italian in preparation) which was awarded the 2023 research prize of the Dutch Association of Italian Studies (sponsored by the Istituto di Cultura per i Paesi Bassi) for best book on the art and archeology of Italy published in the period 2021- 2023. A further book on population genetics is in preparation.
Publications
Rutgers is the author of the award-winning The Jews in Late Ancient Rome. Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora (2000), and other publications in the area of Jewish-Christian relations, including The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism (1998) and Making Myths. Jews in Early Christian Identity Formation (2009). He has edited several volumes including The Use of Sacred Books in the Ancient World (1998), What Athens Has to Do with Jerusalem. Essays on Classical, Jewish, and Early Christian Art and Archaeology in Honor of Gideon Foerster (2002), Letters in the Dust. The Epigraphy and Archaeology of Medieval Jewish Cemeteries (2023), Frontiers. The Transformation and Christianization of the Roman Empire between Center and Periphery. Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Christian Archaeology (4 vols. 2024), the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Late Antique Art and Archaeology and Languages of the Jews (both in press) and Ancient and Medieval Religious Homelands: Essays on Space, Place, and Religion (in preparation).