The demolition of the Theatre
When the theatre fell out of use is still uncertain, but it seems likely that this happen in late antiquity as seen elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. Certainly the demolition of the structure and its reuse for other purposes seem to have been a long, drawn-out process.
Early medieval terracing walls have been found dividing up the space within the theatre, and a church was later constructed on the upper level (the Stoa church). Indeed, a gradual infill of the theatre is what seems to have preserved the lower part of the seating from the stone robbers who removed the blocks of the upper banks of the auditorium. However, even before the theatre area was filled in, decorative and other materials had been removed for reuse elsewhere.
The statues found in the theatre have for long posed a particular conundrum in this respect. When they were excavated by Luigi Maria Ugolini in the 1920s he interpreted them as having fallen from their original location within the niches of the stage building (scaenae frons) and simply left. Since a whole series of these statues were found lying in a row in immediately in front of the scaenae frons, the proposal seemed attractive.
However, since all of these statues were lying face down with their heads towards the stage building they cannot have fallen from the niches, but must have been deliberately removed from their original position and placed there. Further, marble sculpture was found not just in front of the stage building but over the entire area of the theatre – and in only very few cases can the various fragments be shown to belong together.
Rather, it would seem that the various statues were collected in the theatre area as a kind of statue store. Marble in late antiquity was an important component for creating lime needed for construction, and the statues could have been assembled in order to be broken up. Why this process was not completed we can only guess at. Large-scale earthquakes are recorded in Epirus in the 4th and 6th centuries AD – could it have been an event of this nature that stopped works and instead encouraged the terracing of the entire area?
- Head of a woman from the theatre
- Excavating a statue in the theatre
- Row of statues from the theatre