My first field trip with my Barcelona Past & Present class was to El Museu d’Història de Barcelona. I met my class in Placa Sant Jaume. Outside the museum I was able to see the walls of the ancient Roman city of Barcinoas well as the statue of Ramon Berenguer III (pictured at right) who was the Count of Barcelona in the late eleventh century. Since the establishment of Barcino signified Roman power, these two high walls were an important city symbol. The walls also helped protect the city.
city included Roman baths where the ancient people would congregate to bathe and discuss their private lives. I also saw instruments for wine making. As soon as the first grapes of the season were ripe, the Roman kids would stomp them to make wine. Wine was very important to the ancient Roman people. They often had long conversations over wine and food. To them, wine symbolized a way of bonding with friends and family by sharing something special:
good food, good wine, and good conversation. The museum displayed Roman wine glasses, which were specially sculpted to allow the drinker to taste the wine's flavor. The Romans would never have approved of drinking wine out of plastic cups the way American kids sometimes do!
Inside the museum, I saw a model of a Patrician home with dozens of rooms like one that a rich family would have lived in during Roman times. The rooms were extremely elegant. On display in the museum were personal objects that belonged to these types of families including rings, earrings, wine glasses, bowls, utensils, and a laundry tub.
After seeing the Patrician home and domestic objects, my class and I took an elevator to the museum's basement. A screen in the elevator flashed "2010" when we were on the first floor and the number dropped as we descended, to signify that we were "traveling back in time." When we stepped out of the elevator, we were in an underground ancient Roman city. I got to see what a Roman city looked like at the time when Barcino was established. The underground
city included Roman baths where the ancient people would congregate to bathe and discuss their private lives. I also saw instruments for wine making. As soon as the first grapes of the season were ripe, the Roman kids would stomp them to make wine. Wine was very important to the ancient Roman people. They often had long conversations over wine and food. To them, wine symbolized a way of bonding with friends and family by sharing something special:good food, good wine, and good conversation. The museum displayed Roman wine glasses, which were specially sculpted to allow the drinker to taste the wine's flavor. The Romans would never have approved of drinking wine out of plastic cups the way American kids sometimes do!
The museum was a very interesting thing to see and definitely helped me to visualize the ancient Roman culture that I had been reading about in my assigned class readings!
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