What started as a routine elevator shaft installation in a Barcelona hotel basement has turned into one of the most significantRoman archaeologydiscoveries in Spain in decades. Excavations beneath the Gran Hotel Barcino in the city's Gothic Quarter have uncovered a monumental stone pavement dating to the founding years of the Roman colony of Barcino - and the find has forced scholars to tear up nearly everything they thought they knew about the layout of ancient Barcelona. The forum, the beating civic heart ofRoman urbanlife, was not where anyone expected it to be.
The discovery was announced in late February 2026 by theBarcelona Archaeology Service (ICUB)and has been hailed by city officials and archaeologists alike as a find of extraordinary national and international importance. Both the Catalan government and Barcelona City Council have already confirmed they will update museum displays across the city to reflect the new understanding of Roman Barcino's urban plan.
Roman Forum remains found in the archaeological excavation at the Gran Hotel Barcino. (ICUB)
The archaeological intervention began in June 2023 when workers at the Gran Hotel Barcino on Carrer d'Hèrcules 3, inside the historic Casa Requesens, a 14th-to-15th-century Gothic building, started digging a small hole for a new elevator shaft. The initial excavation covered just six square meters, and a routine preventive archaeological inspection was ordered as a formality. At a depth of approximately 2.5 meters, everything changed. Beneath the medieval and modern layers, workers struck a set of enormous, perfectly aligned stone slabs that clearly belonged to a far older world.
Recognizing the significance of what lay beneath, the hotel's owners, the Gargallo Hotels chain, took the remarkable step of expanding the excavation area to 80 square meters and financing the entire two-year archaeological project themselves. The intervention, directed by Jordi Amorós of AGER Arqueologia and supervised by the Barcelona Archaeology Service and the Generalitat de Catalunya's Territorial Cultural Services, ultimately ran from June 2023 to July 2025. What emerged from the earth was the first physical evidence of the actual floor ofancient Barcino'sforum - the central public plaza of the Roman colony founded byEmperor Augustusbetween 15 and 10 BC.
Photogrammetry of the Roman Forum pavement. (Global Geomatics)
At the heart of the find lies a pavement of massive Montjuïc stone slabs covering approximately 42 square meters. The individual blocks are enormous by any standard - some measuring up to 149 centimeters long and 118 centimeters wide, with thicknesses ranging from 18 to 35 centimeters. The variation in thickness was deliberate: Roman builders used it to compensate for the uneven natural bedrock beneath the site, ensuring a perfectly level and durable surface. No pavement of this scale or quality had previously been found anywhere inRoman Barcelona.
The slabs are arranged in rows running northwest to southeast - a direction that is parallel to the decumanus maximus, the main east-west axis of the Roman city's street grid, and perpendicular to the cardo maximus, the north-south axis. This seemingly technical detail carries enormous historical weight. For decades, scholars had believed thatBarcino's forumwas aligned with the cardo, placing it in the area around the modern Palau de la Generalitat and Plaça Sant Jaume. The new pavement tells a completely different story.
"For years, we thought the Roman forum ran through the area of the Palau de la Generalitat," said Xavier Maese of the Barcelona Archaeology Service. "Now we see that it turns 90 degrees from being parallel to the sea to being perpendicular," quotesCatalan News.
The implication is striking: the forum of ancient Barcino was oriented along the east-west axis, running from the sea toward the mountains, not as historians had long assumed. "This is a unique find in Barcelona, both for its age and its function," Maese added.
Source: Ancient Origins - Unravelling the Mysteries of the Past
