Bridging Borders, Connecting Histories: The ROMAN LEGACY Project

For over 2,000 years, the Danube has connected people, goods, ideas, and cultures. In ancient times, it served as both a border and a trade route, a military defense line and the lifeline of a vast empire. Today, it connects once again: archaeological sites, museums, research institutions, tourist regions, and people who preserve and promote Europe’s Roman heritage.

This is precisely where the EU-funded Interreg project ROMAN LEGACY comes in. For about a year now, partners from across the Danube region have been working to make the Roman past along the Danube Limes more visible, better connected, and accessible to a wider audience. The goal is ambitious but clear: to transform many individual sites, stories, and initiatives into a shared cultural route along the Danube.

The Danube Limes is one of Europe’s most impressive archaeological sites. It stretches for approximately 2,400 kilometers from southern Germany to the Black Sea. Forts, towns, roads, ports, sanctuaries, burial grounds, and settlements tell the story of a world that did not end at today’s national borders. What is now spread across many countries was, in Roman times, part of a single, contiguous region. The ROMAN LEGACY project seeks to make this connection visible once again.

It is not just about grand monuments and well-known excavation sites. The project also explores how people in the Roman Danube provinces lived, worked, traded, and traveled. The Danube was not a rigid dividing line between “Rome” and “Barbaricum,” but rather a dynamic space for contact and communication. Military affairs, trade, migration, crafts, religion, and everyday life were all intertwined here. It is precisely this complexity that makes the Danube Limes so fascinating to this day.

View of the Roman Quarter in the open-air section of the Roman city of Carnuntum  - © T. Mauerhofer 

Carnuntum plays a special role in this European network. The Roman city is one of the most important archaeological landmarks along the western Danube Limes and, since 2021, has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Frontiers of the Roman Empire – Danube Limes.” With its reconstructed Roman quarter, amphitheaters, the Heidentor, and the Museum Carnuntinum, it uniquely combines research, heritage preservation, and public engagement. Carnuntum not only showcases Roman history but also makes it tangible through space and all the senses.

The Roman city of Carnuntum brings this experience to ROMAN LEGACY as well. The project integrates this expertise into the development of digital offerings, storytelling, and the presentation of archaeological landscapes for tourists. At the same time, Carnuntum becomes part of a larger European narrative: the city’s history is not presented in isolation, but as a hub of a network that once stretched from the North Sea to the Black Sea, from the Amber Road to the Danube.

Roman Legacy Network Project Partner Meeting - © Römerstadt Carnuntum 

A central concept of ROMAN LEGACY is the development of a joint cultural route. It is intended to connect the most important Roman sites along the Danube and, in the long term, to be certified as a Council of Europe Cultural Route. This would raise awareness of the Danube Limes not only as an archaeological monument but also as a vibrant European cultural space.

The project works toward this goal on several levels. It brings together experts, museums, municipalities, tourism organizations, and policymakers. It develops common frameworks for education and presentation. It compiles existing knowledge, consolidates previous EU projects, and builds upon their results. In addition, it offers concrete resources for visitors: digital applications, mobile guides, virtual and augmented reality experiences, themed trails, events, informational materials, and new formats tailored to different target groups.

Highlights from events held as part of the Roman Legacy Project - © Römerstadt Carnuntum 

It is particularly important to look beyond the actual Limes line. This is because the Roman military camps and towns along the Danube could only function because they were supplied by their hinterland. Farms, small settlements, transportation routes, production sites, and regional markets were all part of the same system. ROMAN LEGACY therefore views the Danube Limes not merely as a line on a map, but as a historical landscape.

The Austrian section of the Danube Limes with border sites - © Römerstadt Carnuntum 

The added value of such EU projects lies precisely in this perspective. They make it possible to work across institutional and national boundaries. A Roman road, a trade network, or a border system cannot be meaningfully explained solely from today’s local perspective. Only through the collaboration of many partners does it become clear just how closely the regions along the Danube were connected with one another even in antiquity.

At the same time, such projects create concrete opportunities for the present. Joint digital offerings increase the visibility of archaeological sites. New themed trails and events boost cultural tourism. Smaller sites can benefit from larger networks. Research findings reach the public more quickly. And local residents, schools, visitors, and tourism businesses gain new access to a heritage that is often right on their doorstep.

Aerial view of the amphitheater in the civilian quarter of the Roman city of Carnuntum - © T. Mauerhofer 

Archaeology is much more than just looking back: it can connect regions, foster a sense of identity, promote sustainable development, and bring European history to life. The Danube region is particularly well-suited for this purpose. Here, the past and present intersect, as do local history and the European dimension, scientific research and the tourist experience. ROMAN LEGACY is not merely an administrative funding project, but an attempt to retell Europe’s Roman heritage. Not as a collection of individual ruins, but as a coherent history of mobility, exchange, and cultural diversity.