Roman theater in Tiberias!

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A real revelation awaits you for R Day at ABC Wednesday--a recently uncovered Roman theater!

All photos are clickable.

Above you see, going from right to left, the Sea of Galilee, the southern shoreline of hotels of modern Tiberias, the dig at which I recently volunteered, and in the foreground a different dig (not mine) which is being done by paid workers for the Israel Antiquities Authority.

After my group of volunteers and staff had worked down below at our site from 5:30 until 13:00, we walked up (in the intense heat) to visit the other dig going on on the slope of Mt. Berenice.

We were welcomed and guided by one of the archaeologists in charge.

Look at this!! Those lucky ducks are working on a Roman theater!
The Romans began building Tiberias in 18 C.E. and the oldest parts of the theater belong to that time.

Off to the right, under the black shade net, was a later structure (3rd-4th century) whose mosaic floor survived, complete with a Greek dedicatory inscription.

Four rows of seats remain in good shape.

The staircase up to the auditorium (where the public sits) is a much later addition, from Byzantine times.

There was room to seat at least 5,000 spectators.

The present-day mayor of Tiberias has big plans to turn the theater into a much-needed venue for big performances. He will use the 22 million shekels that Ehud Olmert gave in 2006 to encourage the citizens of the city. In the summer of 2006 missiles fired from Lebanon were exploding all over the Galilee region, and the people really needed some encouragement.

Our guide the archaeologist is also a restorer. He marveled at the fact that he had no restoration work to do on the perfect floor of the orchestra, 18 meters in diameter, paved with limestone flagstones.

What you see above is the crack made by a big earthquake.

I'm not sure which earthquake. Tiberias is over 200 meters below sea level and sits on the bottom of the Great Rift Valley, scene of many recorded quakes over the last 2,000 years. The last big one was in 1837, very destructive.

You see a hole at the base of the stage? There were several of them in a semi-circle on one side of the orchestra. Someone had an idea that maybe they were for fence-posts, and that the fence enclosed wild animals. Something like gladiators??

The impressive rounded outer wall of the theater is from the local black basalt.

All of this was so well preserved because it was 15 meters below ground less than a year ago.

Covered by alluvium, a landslide from the quarry higher up the hill, and spillover of garbage with which the Municipality had filled the big hole made by the quarrying.

Great progress has been made in the excavations which began only last January.

Well yeah, where there is funding, work can go fast forward.

The site is not open to the public at all, yet.

Seeing the Roman theater was a great field trip for our group.

Now if only we could know and see who had belonged to these two sandaled feet discovered at the site . . . .

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More information here although Haaretz newspaper title mistakenly calls it an amphitheater (which is round or oval, like a stadium). Ours is a theater, open to the north.

And the official report from the Israel Antiquities Authority, with some aerial photos, is here.

To see how the theater was barely visible, in a photo from 2006, I recommend going to Bible Places Blog.

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