The MASLAP Project was launched at the end of 2021, within the HALMA-UMR 8164 Research Centre (Univ. Lille, CNRS, MC), and was awarded a grant by the I-SITE ULNE Foundation of the University of Lille (renamed “Initiative d’Excellence de l’Université de Lille”), up to September 2025. The project is coordinated by Orsolya Heinrich-Tamáska (Leipzig), in collaboration with Dominic Moreau (Lille). Our project cooperates with the HAEMUS International Research Network.

The importance of the Danube Provinces can be observed at social, military and economic levels during the Late Antiquity and the peristyle architecture played a crucial role for local elites. The general plan of the peristyle buildings was often completed with an aula and an apse and became an integral part of such architectural complexes. A full consideration of the respective occupation and use of such buildings between the 3rd and the 7th centuries along the Danube and beyond makes possible a diachronic approach to each of these complexes and comparisons between them. All of these allowing us to comprehend the architectural, landscape and social mutations this category of buildings underwent over a period of 300 years.

To reach the targets, we create a Database combined with a geographic information system (GIS) models of selected late antique peristyle villa sites along the Danube. The MASLAP Project investigates by shifting between a micro-, a meso- and a macro-scale :
–  The macro-scale is dealing with elements of a landscape around of the villae ;
–  The meso-scale is linked to the architecture itself ;
–  The micro-scale is a social space linked mostly to the archaeological finds.

The macro-scale (processed by Máté Szabó) focuses on the field of landscape archaeology. With methods of landscape archaeology (e.g. aerial photography and geophysical methods), we are investigating not only the buildings themselves, but also the environmental conditions of the sites, the traces of formation and exploitation of the Roman landscape, and the network of roads that connected them. The results are collated and evaluated in a GIS system. The investigated sites in Pannonia are in present-day Baranya County, in the Danube Region and around of the Lake Balaton.

The aim of the meso-scale (processed by Orsolya Heinrich-Tamáska) is to examine the forms of architectural expression of peristyle buildings and their transformations, as well as to understand the multiple functions and the potential phases of conversion or reuse. The selected examples are focusing from Noricum to Moesia and include civilian villa sites (e.g. Löffelbach, Baláca) on the one hand and places with military background on the other hand (e.g. Keszthely-Fenékpuszta, Abritus). A subsequent analysis by GIS elucidates the functions and social activities attributed to the various spaces.

The micro-scale of the MASLAP project (processed by Márton Szabó) deals with the archaeological finds of the Pannonian peristyle villae. These sources will be grouped according to the archaeologically datable layers, the periods of construction and the different rooms, thus making it possible to deduce a use for the building in each of its periods, and the alternating function of its different rooms. The aim is to evaluate the chronology and typology of the archaeological finds and to analyse the social spaces of the buildings as a whole and for each of the parts that constitute it.

With this three-scale view, we shall :
–  understand the diverse and/or partial changes of function of the buildings, in order to figure out the institutional and social contexts ;
–  reconstruct the role they played in regard to activities from the administrative and representative points of view ;
–  define their position and function within their settlement and environment ;
–  identify their place within the local infrastructure ;
–  determine their contribution to the development of the historic landscape.
The evaluation of the results and the identification of chronological, regional or cultural trends and differences in the architectural types examined, shed light on the cultural, social and economic processes and concepts at play, showing evidence for continuation or transformation of the peristyle villae over the centuries along the Danube and beyond.

Partner Institutions :
• University of Lille (https://www.univ-lille.fr)
• HALMA-UMR 8164 Research Centre (https://halma.univ-lille.fr)
• Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe – GWZO (https://www.leibniz-gwzo.de)
• ELTE HTK Archaological Reaserch Center (https://ri.abtk.hu)

Main Funding Body :
• Initiative d’Excellence de l’Université de Lille (https://initiative-excellence.univ-lille.fr)