Roman Barcino Museum

We went on a field trip to the Roman Barcino museum with our Barcelona City class. The museum was an extremely unique experience that documented the origins of Barcelona as a Roman City around the time of Christ. The group met outside the subway stop by the museum and our first experience was seeing the original Roman wall of Barcino from the streets of Barcelona. The original stones that built the wall thousands of years ago still stand as a base for structures from centuries following. After musing at the magnificence of the wall, the group proceeded into the museum. One of the first highlights of the museum was seeing the original Roman stone that read “Barcino,” which sat at the entrance of the city during the time of the Romans. We then proceeded underground to see the original layout of the Roman city, which is below the current level of the ground due to centuries of sedimentation buildup. We saw the layout of a typical Roman household, which was fairly modest and small. The original Roman city had a sewage system and an aqueduct system to get water into the city, which is extremely impressive. We also saw where they stored wine in the city, which served as a social tool to stimulate conversation among community members. Wine was also used as a religious symbol. These two uses of wine are in starch contrast to the uses of alcohol in our current society. We use wine to get drunk and have fun, it is interesting how society changes the use of things. We also saw many everyday artifacts from the Roman times, such as plates, glasses, bowls, earrings, perfume, and sewing utensils. It is strange to think that Roman people had such luxuries like perfume thousands of years ago. Overall, the Roman Barcino museum was a great experience. It is unbelievable to think how old the origins of Barcelona really are; the origins of the United States only goes back three hundred years, while the origins of Barcelona date back thousands of years.