What was the Roman Empire? What political features characterized it? What legacy has it left us? The permanent exhibition IMPERIVM. Roman Stories at the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia (MAC), located in Montjuïc, answers all these questions. It displays more than two hundred objects from the Roman and late Roman periods, some of which are true treasures of national archaeology and of the Iberian Peninsula. Videomaps, innovative audiovisual and interactive resources enrich the journey.
The exhibition, curated by Mario Cervera and Arturo de la Oliva, is the MAC's most ambitious production in recent years. It presents the Roman Empire as one of the first examples of a globalized society in the West and explains what it meant to be Roman with a contemporary perspective.
Videomaps and 360 immersive video
IMPERIVM. Roman Stories incorporates videomaps on extraordinary archaeological pieces such as the sarcophagus of Proserpina, an immersive video with 360-degree glasses to delve into the ancient city of Tarraco from a bird's-eye view, and numerous state-of-the-art audiovisual resources.
It is a journey into emotions, as it reveals the most human part, the life of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire and the diversity of its society, through audiovisual narratives. Fictional characters such as senators, a child, a priestess, a legionary, a slave, a gladiator or a slave trader, show their desires, delusions and most secret emotions.
The MAC's permanent exhibition is designed to interest and attract a wide range of audiences. Visitors have an audio guide included in the ticket price in five languages (Catalan, Spanish, English, French and Occitan), which provides detailed information on fifty of the featured pieces. The exhibition also has a tactile experimentation space, the ArqueoLAB, especially aimed at visitors with visual difficulties, sign guides and easy-to-read guides. In addition, a version for families and children has been created, following Rufinus, a rabbit that will accompany them throughout the activity.
Museographic transformation
This exhibition constitutes the first milestone of an important global museographic transformation process of the MAC, which will be developed over the next three years. IMPERIVM. Roman Stories is the first of the three new permanent or long-term exhibitions that the museum wants to implement.
Next year, on the occasion of the ninety years of the inauguration of the facility, a second exhibition with the museum's prehistoric collections is planned, and for the 2026-2027 academic year, a new presentation of the Iberian collections.
Currently, the museum's technical team is also working on the design of new permanent exhibitions at the MAC's venues in Girona, Ullastret and Olèrdola, which will also see the light during the next four years. This important museographic renovation work aims to convert the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia into a benchmark museum institution at national and international level, in a clear commitment to innovation and creativity, where the role of archaeology is to teach, question, inspire and excite.