Roman Barcino

At the beginning of the semester we began to learn about the early history of the city of Barcelona. We learned that the  Romans established a city called Barcino in present-day Barcelona and some of the remains can be seen when walking around a particular part of the city, for example the last remaining portion of the Roman aqueduct next to the Barcino sign. However, most Roman Barcino ruins exist in a museum located on top of where the ancient city was located. We went on a class field trip to this museum early on in the semester and we were able to see how and where the citizens of Barcino lived. The first thing we did when we entered the museum was take an elevator downstairs and back two thousand years. At this point no pictures were allowed to be taken so unfortunately this blog won't have any visual components. When we exited the elevator in front of us were old Roman ruins, Roman ruins I didn't even know existed. There was an entire ancient city in front of my eyes and I couldn't wait to walk amongst the ruins. My favorite part of the exhibit was the model house that showed how an affluent Barcino home looked and functioned. The home largely ran on account of the slaves and their barracks were built on the outer section of the home. After the home we saw how the men and women of Barcino passed free time. They showed old board and dice games that they recovered amongst the ruins. After the games there was an example of how the men and women dressed and how they would wash their clothing. I was surprised to learn that they used there own urine to wash their clothes because it contains a chemical that sterilizes the clothes. Seems a little ironic that urine can clean cloths. We saw their ancient 'washing machines' and remnants of their homemade bleach remained in a blue tint that covered the ruins. A final ruin that caught my eye were the large vats that were once used to store and ferment red wine. Again we could see remnant of tint, this time reddish-purple color, where the wine used to be. To come to Barcelona with no previous knowledge that a a Roman city used to exist here and then to be able to walk amongst the ruins was absolutely fantastic.