July 24th, 2021 – a beautiful summer day on which hundreds of people joined us for our Austrian pilot site visit in Tulln, the Roman Comagena.

Tulln is situated to the west of Vienna and today is famous for its numerous fairs – including a big boat fair, which seems very fitting for our project. 

The pilot site visit featured four main activities:

• Guided museum tours: Visitors were guided through the Roman museum in Tulln, which was re-opened only last year after extensive renovations. A Roman auxiliary soldier (and incidentally also an archaeologist) presented the exhibits on display in the museum and told stories from the live around Comagena from almost 2000 years ago.

• Guided city walks: A Roman lady took the visitors on a walk through modern Tulln, explaining how the city looked like in the time when it was still called Comagena. The highlights of that tour were the remains of the Roman fortifications that can still be seen today – amongst them the impressive, multiple storey high so called “Salt-Tower”.

• Roman concerts: The ensemble Ars Serena gathered in a pavilion in front of the Roman museum in Tulln and performed several musical pieces with reconstructed antique instruments and explained, where the lyrics come from – some of them have been preserved on papyri.

• Children’s programme: On the main square of Tulln children could try to write on papyrus and on wax tablets. They could also enjoy Roman children’s games. And incidentally, also adults enjoyed these activities very much.

In addition to these activities, colleagues from Danube University Krems and the University of Salzburg informed about the Living Danube Limes project and its developments.

Photo: DUK