Danube limes in Serbia: on the way to a UNESCO World heritage site – problems, challenges and solutions

Abstract

Since 1987, when the first part of the Roman Limes was inscribed to the UNESCO List of World Heritage, there has been an idea to unite this system, stretching over 5,000 km across the Roman provinces in Europe, the Near East and North Africa, into one big site – Frontiers of the Roman Empire (Ployer, Polak and Schmidt 2017). Apart from Hadrian’s and Antonine’s wall, the Lower Germanic, the Upper German-Raetian Limes and the western part of the Danube Limes have also been inscribed to this list so far. The Danube Limes was divided into two segments – western and eastern, with the parts in Germany, Slovakia and Austria already inscribed. The nomination of the eastern part of the Danube Limes is a joint project of four countries – Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. The Limes section in Serbia is 450 km long. Archaeological prospection and excavations have confirmed the existence of approximately 80 sites, 10 in the province of Pannonia Inferior and 70 in Moesia Superior (Korać et al. 2014). For the revised Tentative List, 35 sites were selected (Tentative List).