Traveling with a Roman ship on the Danube - Danuvina Alacris Part 5

Part five of the journey of the Danuvina Alacris:

We have arrived in Romania. Everything is a tad more wild. A reenactment event at the projects main pilot site in Romania should have been held. It was a fail.

In my original draft of the project, these festivties should have involved major parts of the scene of late antiquity reenactment. Reenactors from all over Europe should have gathered at these festivals to show the major unifying potential of the heritage of this time. There was enough money and time for this to be executed correctly and with lasting effect. Why did it not happen? Because the importance of this was neither recognised by the leading managers nor comunicated to the local managers.

Why was this so important though? Because this entire project was about giving Europe a narrative - a common narrative. It wasn't about excavations, not about reports worth toilet paper in the end, not about academics and their careers. It wasn't even about that ship! It was about creating a dream. A vision. Of a Europe united through its historic heritage - not divided. It was about people from all over the continent celebrating late antiquity together, along the entire Danube, and leaving a lasting impression on the people living there today. People separated by centuries of competing national narratives.

What we got, is what we always get when we leave dreams to burocrats hiding incompetence behind their titles. Yes these words are hard. But the failure of this project was harder.

I swore to myself that day, that I will get to build another ship. A bigger, more authentic and better made one. One comandeered and owned by reenactors. A ship truly worthy of the money put into it. In the next weeks I may meet the people that will pave the way to this new adventure. More I can't tell yet.