Badalona recovers its Roman past with Via Augusta dig

Excavation in city north of Barcelona reveals 40-meter stretch of first-century BC Roman road

Archeologists working on the excavation of a Roman-era Via Augusta in the Catalan town of Badalona (by Eduard Batlles)
Archeologists working on the excavation of a Roman-era Via Augusta in the Catalan town of Badalona (by Eduard Batlles) / ACN

ACN | Barcelona

December 10, 2019 06:33 PM

The Via Augusta was the most important road in Hispania, or Roman Spain, and excavations on a stretch of the ancient thoroughfare discovered not long ago in the city of Badalona, just north of Barcelona, will soon be completed.

The remains of the road were discovered during construction work in the Coll i Pujol neighborhood, and have been dated to the beginning of the first century BC, when the city known as Baetulo to the Romans was founded.

The accidental discovery is one of the most important of its kind ever unearthed in Badalona, and the find goes a long way to confirming the theory that Baetulo was one of the Roman Empire's most significant hubs.

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