Iron Age Danube Route

The foundation of the Iron Age Danube Route was laid in the project “Monumentalised Early Iron Age Landscapes in the Danube River Basin”, abbreviated as Iron-Age-Danube, which was co-financed by the Interreg Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) of the European Union. The project focused on monumental archaeological landscapes of the Early Iron Age, characterised, for example, by fortified hilltop settlements and large tumulus cemeteries, from the era between roughly the 9th–4th centuries BC.

The project involved a partnership between twenty institutions from Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, which also had the necessary expertise in archaeological heritage management and cultural tourism. The partners shared a vision of joint approaches to researching, managing and protecting complex (pre)historic landscapes and their integration into sustainable tourism.

After the end of the Iron-Age-Danube project, the partners were encouraged to develop a new transnational cultural route with the support of the Routes4U project of the European Council. The Iron Age Danube Route aims to connect and jointly promote regions, archaeological sites and museums, which present Iron Age heritage in the Danube region. In order to do so, high standards for the protection, research and presentation of this heritage have been established.