By Nina Dengg, Team Magdeburg
The Viabundus project initially aims to map the Hanseatic road system. It stretched from the Netherlands all the way to Russia and from Denmark to Czechia. One can rightly say that a truly European road system was established and used, not to mention the connections that existed via sea routes.
But this is only the perspective of the Hanse: Pan-European road systems are much older and have connected Europe since Antiquity. The most famous example would be the imperial road system that the Romans maintained, which stretched from the westernmost tips of Europe, along the Mediterranean, including the North African colonies all the way to the Levante during its Golden Age. The clearly organised structure of the Roman road network has attracted much attention from researchers, resulting among others in the ORBIS digital map of Roman roads, which has been an important source of inspiration for the Viabundus project.
But what happened to this expansive road system? How come we can see the remains of Roman roads quite clearly until today in certain places, while in others they seem to have disappeared completely? The following thoughts are derived from my master’s thesis in which I worked on the (dis)continuity of the Roman road network in northern Italy, the Alps and southern Germany.
