Roman theatre uncovered at base of Jerusalem’s Western Wall
occupied jerusalem — Israeli archaeologists on Monday announced the discovery of the first known Roman-era theatre in Jerusalem’s Old City, a unique structure around 1,800 years old that abuts the Western Wall and may have been built during Roman Emperor Hadrian’s reign.
The edifice’s elegant masonry was found during excavations carried out in the past two years below the Western Wall tunnels, a warren of ancient subterranean passageways running alongside a contested Jerusalem holy site built by King Herod in the first century B.C. The excavations plunged over six metres below ground, exposing eight previously uncovered courses of the Temple Mount’s western retaining wall.
Joe Uziel, an Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist heading the dig, said that the theatre-like structure is believed to date to the second or third centuries — the period after Rome razed the city in 70 and the Emperor Hadrian rebuilt it in the mid-second century as a Roman colony, Aelia Capitolina.
Uziel speculates that the unfinished semi-circular theatre may have been intended to serve as a small odeon, a venue for musical or theatric performances, or a bouleuterion, a place of assembly for the colony’s municipal officials.
It was relatively small, and might have been designed to seat around 200 people. The excavations have exposed the first row of seats, orchestra area, and part of the stage. Wilson’s Arch, part of a monumental causeway leading into the temple that soars above the theatre, may have been employed for its acoustic properties.
“One of the amazing things is that because we’re beneath an arch, they would have had the arch to use as their roof,” Uziel said.
What remains unanswered is why the building wasn’t finished.
“After putting in all this effort of building such a grandiose building, what would cause them to stop,” Uziel wondered and suggested that the outbreak of the second Jewish revolt against Rome, from 132-135, could have halted construction and left the theatre unfinished. —