Roman Barcino

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

For our first class field trip, we visited the ancient town of Barcino to discover the underground Roman city of Barcino, that has been discovered in Barcelona.  The area was excavated from 1930-1960 and turned into a museum for people to visit.  During this field trip we saw many things that have been preserved since the time of the Roman empire.  During the Roman Empire, Barcino was established to distribute land among retired soldiers.  Barcino's strategic location on a branch of the Via Augusta allowed its commercial and economic development to prosper and Barcino also enjoyed immunity from imperial taxation.  Throughout the years Barcino has been damaged through wars, but still has a strong presence with the underground city and other artifacts such as the single remaining aqueduct.

We began our journey in front of La Catedral very close to Plaza Nova, which shows where the Roman Aqueduct entered the city of Barcino.  

The picture above of Carrer de Duran i Bas depicts one of several arches of the original Roman aquedcuts in Barcino. 

The main focus of our field trip was to visit the underground ruins or remains of the Roman city of Barcino founded around 10 BC by emperor Augustus.

As you can see here, these are the four remaining columns of the Temple of Augustus, which were located on Barcino's Roman Forum.  The columns are 9m high and were built in the first century BC and dedicated to Emperor Augustus. 

This picture here shows a depiction of what the Roman forum in Barcino used to look like during the Roman Empire.

The picture above depicts a typical Roman house during the time of Barcino in the Roman empire.

As Xavi, stated during our field trip, the item above during the Roman empire was equivalent to our iPhone today.  During the Roman empire this tablet allowed Romans to write stuff then erase it and write new stuff, an important invention during the time of the Roman Empire.

In the ruins of the undeground city of Barcino you are able to see the remains of a laundry and dying workshop from the second century, a salted fish and garum factory and a wine making facility from the 3rd century AD.  As you can see, the ruins of Barcino are maintained extremely well to allow tourists to see how Romans lived and prospered during the Roman Empire.

We concluded our field trip at the St. Agatha Chapel (Reial de Santa Agata) which was built in 1302 on top of the Roman wall that surrounded Barcino.  If you look closely you will notice the wooden ceiling of the Chapel.

Overall, I really enjoyed participating this field study and learning about Barcino during the Roman Empire and suggest a visit to the ruins of Barcino to anyone visiting Barcelona.