Vučedol Culture Museum and Archaeological Site awarded European Heritage Label

Vučedol Culture Museum and Archaeological Site awarded European Heritage Label (Photo credit: Darko Bilandzic/CC BY-SA 4.0)

ZAGREB, 29 April (Hina) – The Vučedol Culture Museum and Archaeological Site has been awarded the European Heritage Label, the Croatian Culture and Media Ministry said on Thursday.

This is the second European Heritage Label awarded to Croatian museologists. The first institution to be awarded the label was the Krapina Neanderthal Museum and Hušnjakovo archaeological site in 2016.

“The mission of the Vučedol Culture Museum is the research, protection, presentation and interpretation of the local identity, history, culture, and art, as well as the tradition, natural-historical and archaeological heritage of eastern Croatia, and it deserves this European acknowledgement because of its active role in the education of all age groups and sustainable use of cultural and natural heritage,” the ministry said.

The European Commission particularly valued the fact that during the coronavirus pandemic the museum increased its presence on social networks, developing content for online users, as well as cooperating with artists, photographers, musicians, designers and other creatives, enhancing the value of museological presentations.

The museum also aims to increase its visibility by establishing a school of archaeology to cooperate with similar research institutions in Croatia and abroad as the basis of an interdisciplinary centre for Indo-European studies in archaeology, genetics, linguistics and other disciplines based on centuries-long archaeological research of the area, the ministry said.

The European Heritage Label is a European Commission project implemented as part of the Creative Europe programme. It is awarded to sites in the EU that have a strong symbolic European value and underline the common European history and development of the European Union, European values and human rights, which are the basis of European integration.

Apart from the Vučedol Culture Museum and Archaeological Site, the European heritage Label has also been awarded this year to the Archaeological Site of Nemea (Greece), Aleksandrovo Tomb (Bulgaria), Almadén Mining Park (Spain), Echternach Saint Willibrord Heritage (Luxembourg), Historic Centre of Turaida (Latvia), Medieval wall painting in the Gemer and Malohont regions (Slovakia), the Oderbruch (Germany), Palace of the European Commission of the Danube (Romania), Seminaarinmäki Campus (Finland), Ventotene Manifesto (Italy) and MigratieMuseumMigration (MMM) (Belgium).