Panorama of the Week: Jerash Roman Theater, Jordan
Filed Under: Just a few hours outside of Jordan’s capital city of Amman lies Jerash, a city playing host to a rather impressive collection of Roman ruins. No “ruin fatigue” here: the history of Jerash – layer upon layer of civilizations, from Greek to Roman to Umayyad, keeps you wondering about the cycles of cultures and religions — and all the people who walked the same streets over the last 3000 years.
The South Theatre pictured below was built by the Romans in the 1st century AD. Its layout highlights the Roman skill of acoustic design. If you stand at the central acoustic point inside the theater and belt out your favorite tune or poem, every person in that 3,000 seat theatre will hear you loud and clear. Impressive.
Panorama: South Theatre of Roman Ruins of Jerash, Jordan
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August 30th, 2011 at 8:32 am
wow that is amazing man i always wanted to visit there
August 30th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Looks like a real theatre, I can imagine audiences coming to see plays! Amazing! Wonderful photos (that went into making the pano).
August 31st, 2011 at 11:32 am
Interesting about the acoustics. Our local university just built a dynamite theater, but I bet it requires electcity and lots of electronic equipment to do the same thing!
September 2nd, 2011 at 11:09 am
Awesome shot, was lucky enough to also visit and you captured it sooo well!
September 2nd, 2011 at 11:27 am
@Henry: For a small country, Jordan is full of Roman ruins like this. Very impressive.
@Sutapa: It definitely is a real theatre – you can still see the areas where actors and speakers used to perform 2000 years ago and can imagine the cheering crowds. Pretty neat.
@Phyllis: We were talking with someone else about acoustics the other day and how the old European cathedrals often were built with amazing acoustics while today we use technology and different materials to get the same (or perhaps inferior) effect. And the Romans knew what they were doing even before the great cathedral builders. Very impressive.
Hope the acoustics at the new theatre are good!
@Rob: Thanks! We tried to capture it with a bit of activity, but not too much. Glad it conveyed the feeling of being there.