Greece & Rome · 15–10 BC · Barcelona (Roman Barcino), Catalonia, Spain
Roman forum pavement found beneath Barcelona hotel suggests the square was rotated
Slabs laid between 15 and 10 BC, when the colony of Barcino was founded, run parallel to the main east-west street, challenging the forum's traditional orientation.
Official announcement
Barcelona (Roman Barcino), Spain Archaeologists working beneath a hotel in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter have found a monumental stone pavement from the forum of Roman Barcino, laid between 15 and 10 BC in the colony's founding years. The slabs run in a direction that suggests the forum was turned 90 degrees from the layout scholars had long assumed.
The excavation at number 3 Carrer d'Hèrcules was directed by Jordi Amorós of the archaeology company AGER Arqueologia, under the supervision of the Archaeology Service of the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB) and the Territorial Cultural Services in Barcelona of the Generalitat de Catalunya. It ran from June 2023 to July 2025 during expansion works at the Gran Hotel Barcino, in the former Requesens house, a Gothic building of the 14th and 15th centuries.
The work began as a preventive dig of about six square metres for a lift shaft. At a depth of 2.5 metres, a set of large, aligned slabs appeared. The property owner, the Gargallo Group, expanded the excavation to 80 square metres and changed the architectural project to keep the remains in place. Between May and July 2024, 70 micropiles were installed in the Gothic house to make the excavation safe in its main hall, the Sala Gran.
Slabs of Montjuïc stone
The pavement covers 42 square metres. Its slabs were cut from Montjuïc, the hill beside the city, and measure between 43 and 118 centimetres wide and up to 149 centimetres long. Their thickness varies from 18 to 35 centimetres, which the excavators say allowed the builders to adjust to the uneven bedrock beneath.
According to the team, this is the first paving of its kind found in Barcelona. Its position, size and quality led them to identify it with the forum, the main public square of the Roman town. Until now the only structure that could be tied to the forum with certainty was the Temple of Augustus, whose four columns and podium survive at number 10 Carrer del Paradís. The archaeologists are still working out whether the slabs floored a public building, such as a basilica, a curia or a high-status commercial space, or the open square itself.
A forum turned 90 degrees
Roman towns were laid out along two main streets, the cardo maximus running north-south and the decumanus maximus running east-west. The Barcino slabs are set in rows from northwest to southeast, parallel to the decumanus and perpendicular to the cardo, matching the colony's original street grid. The traditional reconstruction, based on the position of the Temple of Augustus, placed the forum parallel to the cardo, across much of the area now occupied by the Palau de la Generalitat and Plaça de Sant Jaume. The new evidence suggests the square may have been rotated 90 degrees from that plan, which the team says fits the site's central position within the Roman town. The press release states that the proposal does not judge whether the temple shared this rotation, a question left for future research.
On its southeast side the pavement is bounded by a large Roman concrete structure. Next to it is a paved area flanked by two square wells 2.6 metres deep, equal to nine Roman feet, joined by a siphon that moved water from one reservoir to the other. The excavators think the wells were part of a hydraulic system, possibly linked to an ornamental fountain or to water management within the forum. Pottery found inside dates their abandonment to the mid-6th century AD. More than 150 fragments of imported marble, from Carrara, mainland Greece, the Aegean islands, Anatolia and Egypt, support the idea that the concrete structure was clad in marble.
The northeastern end of the pavement was stripped of slabs, and pottery filling the gaps dates the end of the forum's civic role to the beginning of the 5th century AD. In the 6th and 7th centuries the space was divided up for domestic use. Two parallel walls two metres apart, built over the concrete structure, deviate 14.5 degrees from the Roman pavement and may mark a passage or street, possibly related to the 6th-century church of Sant Just i Pastor nearby. Early medieval layers of the 8th to 10th centuries follow. A silo of about 3,000 litres, partly cut into the Roman concrete, was the grain store of the Gothic house until the courtyard was remodelled in the modern period.
The remains have been integrated into the hotel's basement, where museum fitting-out has been under way since September 2025. La Brújula Verde reports that they will be open to public visits. Arkeonews says access will be mainly for hotel guests, with occasional guided visits according to city officials. Study of the 58 coins recovered during the excavation is continuing.
Sources
Spotted a mistake? Tell the editor about a spelling error or a fact that is wrong. We correct stories openly.
Readers' picks show on the front page.
Follow @AncientHeraldHQ on X for the day's finds as they come in.
Comments
House rules. Stay on the subject, be kind to other readers and say where your facts come from. No advertising and no personal attacks. The editor reads along and hides comments that break these rules.
Loading comments…