Virtual Archaeological Landscapes of the Danube Region (Danube's Archaeological eLandscapes)

On July 1^st 2020, the EU project "Danube's Archaeological eLandscapes" was launched under the leadership of Universalmuseum Joanneum. For a total of 30 months, 23 partners from ten countries have set themselves the goal of making the archaeological heritage and in particular the archaeological landscapes of the Danube region more visible and thus more attractive at regional, national and international level with the help of state-of-the-art technologies. The project, which is co-financed by the EU-programme Interreg Danube Transnational Program, gives new impetus to the digitisation of Europe's archaeological heritage.

The rich and culturally diverse archaeological heritage of the Danube region is an integral part of our cultural heritage. It also offers great potential for the development of tourism, but is constantly faced with the challenge of not being immediately recognized. New technologies can now help to visualize archaeological heritage in a completely new way and make it accessible to the public in an attractive way.

The main objective of the project "Virtual Archaeological Landscapes of the Danube Region" (Danube's Archaeological eLandscapes) is to make the archaeological heritage, in particular the archaeological landscapes of the Danube region, more visible and attractive regionally, nationally and internationally, thus to promote sustainable cultural tourism.

The main actors of the project are internationally renowned museums, which want to focus their work outside their institutions on the most famous archaeological landscapes of the Danube region. By incorporating Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, museum visitors are encouraged to want to get to know the rich archaeological heritage not only in the museum exhibitions but also in the context of the landscapes from which they come. They should not only stay in their own country, but also look beyond modern national borders and learn about a long forgotten history of the Danube region.

The project will not only be present in virtual space, but through the integration of the Iron Age Danube Route (www.ironagedanuberoute.com) and the development of new archaeological cultural routes also in the archeologically particularly interesting regions of the Danube basin. The Cultural Routes, supported by one of the largest networks of museums with archaeological collections in the Danube Region with a long-term cross-promotion campaign, will strengthen the region's tourist offer in the future.