About Us
The project Bridging The North Sea aims to set up an innovative transnational network of scientists, scholars, civil workers, commercial organizations, museums curators and volunteers along the coasts of the North Sea Basin covering four countries as a start, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The aim of this international co-operation is to strengthen the awareness of North Sea connectivity among modern coastal residents inspired by a research program on the North Sea basin in Roman times.
This will concern its coastal inhabitants, trade logistics, physical infrastructure and environment.
Our international network will consist of (semi)governmental, academic and private organizations and companies and persons with a wide experience in the fields of:
Historic Network
Tourism
Cultural Heritage
The strength of Bridging the North Sea Initiative is connecting the local/regional experience and contacts of each region with other partner regions in a structural way.
Besides historical and archaeological issues, we want to communicate to the wider audience about the potentials and importance of their own maritime heritage. Connecting the past with the present within wider societal perspective will allow us to show how coastal population in the past dealt with or reacted to for example changing sea levels, and migration across the seascape. Understanding the North Sea landscape in the Roman period will educate and inspire modern inhabitants to react to similar pressures in the future. The Roman North Basin was part of one empire, one logistic system, without boundaries as we know today: studying the history of the North Sea and using it to explore current issues and modern society demand working and communicating across these boundaries and experiencing them as an invitation rather than an obstacle. The project Bridging the North Sea aims to be a structural collaboration within the boundaries of the ancient Roman Empire. The project will involve members of the local community and volunteers in order to increase the awareness among modern communities of their historic relation to the North Sea.
Our goal is to produce an archaeological research program of the North Sea basin in Roman times, raising awareness among modern coastal residents of their maritime heritage, the North Sea’s historic role connecting the area, and how present challenges such as rising sea levels were dealt with the past.