The Roman Theatre at Palmyra

Right beside the colonnaded street, a half-circle of stone tiers around a paved orchestra. It was built in the 2nd century AD. The seating is 92 metres across and largely intact. The one big missing piece is the front of the stage building, which was destroyed in 2017.

What to see

The seating, the cavea, is divided into 11 wedges of 12 rows each. You can sit on the limestone tiers. The circle at the centre is the orchestra; its paving is even and you walk across it. The acoustics still work: someone speaking normally in the middle of the orchestra can be heard from the top row.

What is left of the stage building

The wall behind the stage had five doors: a large one set in a curved niche at the centre, and two more on each side in rectangular niches. The low wall in front of the stage carried curved and rectangular niches in alternation. That front was destroyed in January 2017. You now see its blocks lying on the stage. The seating and the orchestra came through the war largely untouched.

Where the repair work stands

In 2023 the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums and the Russian Academy of Sciences signed an agreement to restore the theatre, and work was carried out on the stage. Which sections are fenced changes, so ask at the entrance.

What most people miss

The theatre gate and the semicircular plaza behind it. Most visitors climb the tiers and go back the way they came. But the theatre was never designed on its own; it forms a set with that plaza, and the plaza connects to the street.