Archaeological Prospection Case Study St. Anna in der Wüste

Since 2010 the LBI ArchPro is conducting a large-scale archaeological prospection case study at St. Anna in der Wüste, Lower Austria. The remains of the friary complex of St. Anna in der Wüste (St Anna in the Wilderness) lies in the Leithagebirge (Leitha Hills) on the border between the Austrian federal regions of Lower Austria and Burgenland. The ruins of the friary are prominent above-ground traces and survive in the contemporary landscape alongside old trackways, former quarries and boundary markers. Extensive surviving written and pictorial source materials make the friary and its surroundings as an ideal subject for landscape archaeological interpretation.

The LBI ArchPro is a research institute of the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft and was founded in 2010. The institute carries out its research activities together with several international partner organizations and aims to create a network of archaeological scientists supporting interdisciplinary research programmes for the development of large-scale, efficient, non-invasive technologies for the discovery, documentation, visualization and interpretation of Europe's archaeological heritage.

The lead partners of the institute based in Vienna, are the University of Vienna, the Vienna University of Technology, the Austrian Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics, the Province of Lower Austria, Airborne Technologies, the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz, the Swedish Central National Heritage Board, the IBM Visual & Spatial Technology Centre Vista at the University of Birmingham and Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research.