Roman Barcino

Upon visiting the Museu d'Historia de Barcelona our class was granted the wonderful opportunity to travel back in time two thousand years. Once inside the museum, our class was able to see artifacts discovered onsite under the museum, including a roman wheel, a checkers board, women's personal care items and glasses and pieces of pottery that two millennium ago were being used by Romans in the Barcelona colony. I was able to watch a video showing the city expansion and growth from earlier times until the expansion for the 1992 Olympics. Underneath the museum there were ruins from Roman days, including the areas where the garum, or salted fish was prepared, the Roman baths and the remains of where the wine was stored so it could ferment before being transported all over the empire. I learned more about the daily lives of Romans by visiting the museum than I could have ever learned from a book. Much contemporary Spanish culture can be traced back to Roman influence, such as the importance on wine, once commonly drank because water wasn't always safe, and later used as an important religious symbol as the blood of Jesus Christ, wine still holds an important niche in society, culturally representing regional ideology with each region producing its own special wine. Wine is often drank with meals, and it is not taboo to drink wine regularly throughout the day, where in the United States a person who drank that often might be considered an alcoholic. This is just another cultural difference between the U.S. and Spain. Another tradition passed down from the Romans is the open-air market. With roots dating back two thousand years, markets are still the most popular place to buy foods, beating out supermarkets. After visiting the Boqueria market, I can understand why markets like these are so popular oftentimes having the freshest foods and freshest catch of the day. The trip to the Barcelona history museum enabled me to get a better background and consciousness of the history of the city.