Almost 2,000 years ago the Romans were already returning home from their trips with souvenirs. The best proof was hidden in Soria

You’ve probably done it more than once. You go on vacation to Cancun, Florence, Barcelona or that beach that you like so much and once there you decide to buy a souvenir to take home. Maybe a magnet for the fridge or a figurine for the living room. It seems like a very modern gesture, but almost 2,000 years ago the Romans who moved around the world were already doing something very similar, although not exactly as tourists. We know it thanks to an old cup bronze found in Berlanga del Dueroa small town in Soria.

At first glance it looks like just another ‘glass’, but in reality it is connected to one of the most fascinating Roman mega-constructions of all time.

In a place in Soria… Archeology advances thanks to hours of study and field work. Also (sometimes) by pure strokes of luck. It happened some time ago in Berlanga del Duero, a town of 800 inhabitants located in Soria. Over there, “by chance”historians have found a Roman cup, a small hemispherical bronze bowl with enamels.

Studies have dated it to the 2nd century AD. Said like this, it may not seem like a big deal (fortunately we have many Roman bowls and there are larger, more lavish and older ones), but Berlanga’s piece has something special: it is a roman souvenir which in its day traveled more than a thousand kilometers.

A souvenir for travelers? More or less. Archaeologists believe that the Berlanga cup is “a souvenir brought to the peninsula by a Celtiberian soldier”, as they explain from the CSIC. Its purpose was not (just) to serve as another bowl. It also had a symbolic value, similar to what we can give in 2026 to the figures that we bring with us after a trip to Japan, Italy or those memories that help us evoke the months we spent on Erasmus in Berlin.

If we take into account that the piece was manufactured around the 2nd century AD The above would be enough to highlight it above the rest of the cups that we preserve from ancient Rome, but the piece recovered in Soria has another extra value: its origin.

The key: Hadrian’s Wall. The piece is linked to Hadrian’s Wallthe Roman fortification begun in the time of Emperor Hadrian to protect the province of Britain from the raids of the Picts. We have been able to establish the link thanks to two pieces of information. First, its origin. The cup was made with metals that surely came from the mines of Wales or Durham. Second, the details that decorate the glass, which include nods to the Roman military fortification.

“Memory of…” It doesn’t matter if they are from Barcelona, ​​Milan, New York or any other city in the world, tourist souvenirs always tend to share one characteristic: they include the name of the destination and some of its most visited icons. The famous “Memory of XXX” accompanied by a silhouette of the Sagrada Familia, the Duomo or the empire state. Something similar happens in the Berlanga cup. In addition to the enamels, its decoration represents Hadrian’s Wall “through a frieze punctuated with turrets”, CSIC clarifies.

Not only that. The piece also includes inscriptions directly related to the military camps in the eastern zone: Cilurnum, Onno, Vindobala and Condercum. The researchers have also noticed a curious detail: the names seem arranged to be read from west to east, as if the cup represented the appearance of the wall for people who saw it from inside.

Is it a unique piece? No. And although it may seem contradictory, that is another of the characteristics that makes the Berlanga glass so special: it is and is not unique, just like many of the souvenirs that we bring back from our trips or that are sometimes given to us by companies for which we have worked.

The piece rescued in Soria is one of the five “Hadrian’s Wall Cups” that are known, enameled vessels linked to the fortification of ancient Britain. The first was found in 1725 in an English villa. Since then, two other similar pieces have been found in England and one more in France. Also a couple of fragments, one of them discovered in the 19th century between Zamora and León.

That piece in question is known as the ‘Hildeburgh Fragment’ (name of its buyer) and is kept in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The Berlanga cup is closer to us: it is kept in the Numantine Museumin Soria. Its state of conservation is also much better. Although the Berlanga crown has fragmented and deformed over time, we conserve about 90% of its structure, which has allowed it to be virtually reconstructed.

Looking for its owner. The cup is fascinating, but it leaves one question even more so: Who was its owner? Who the hell decided almost 2,000 years ago to take a commemorative cup from a fortification located more than a thousand kilometers away to Soria? The researchers have a theory: The piece belonged to a Celtiberian soldier who served on the most remote frontier of the empire.

“The quality of craftsmanship and the materials used in these glasses tell us that they were prestigious objects, most likely made to order to give or decorate the military elite who had served at the Wall, the farthest border of the empire,” comment Jesús García Sánchez, expert from the Institute of Archeology of Mérida. “Most researchers, and we too, agree that they are interpreted as a souvenir or memento of the Wall.”

From Britain to the peninsula. If the theory of García and his companions is correct, the Berlanga cup would have made a fascinating journey: it would have been part of the luggage with which a soldier from Celtiberia (a region that included part of what is now the province of Soria, as well as areas of Rioja, Zaragoza, Guadalajara, Teruel and Cuenca) who had served in Britain returned home.

“We know that the Romans incorporated troops from recently conquered territories into their army and that a Celtiberian unit, the Cohors I Celtiberoum, served on Hadrian’s Wall,” comments Roberto de Pablo, author of the study about the cup, which has just been published in the academic journal Britannia.

A window to the past. Those doubts may not take long to be resolved. In the area where the piece was found, archaeological surveys were carried out that have revealed the presence of a group of constructions, probably part of a Roman villa inhabited between the 1st and 4th centuries AD. The idea is that the study campaign continues this year, focusing on La Cerrada del Arroyo, an area located about 100 meters from the center of Berlanga del Duero.

Images | CSIC and Wikipedia

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