Report: Mystery of exceptional sound at Greece’s Epidaurus Theater solved

The ancient mystery of the great sound quality at the ancient Greek theater of Epidaurus has finally been solved, researchers posit in a recent study, according to greekreporter.com.

Scientists have been wondering about the elevated sound quality of Epidaurus’ theater for decades, developing certain theories along the way.

The ancient theater of Epidaurus was designed by Polykleitos in the 4th century BC. The original thirty-four rows were extended in Roman times by another twenty-one rows. It seats up to fourteen thousand people.

The theater is admired for its exceptional acoustics, which permits almost perfect intelligibility of un-amplified spoken words from the proscenium to all fourteen thousand spectators, regardless of their seating.

Some even say that audiences are able to hear a pin drop or a match being struck from any seat in the house.

The theater, renowned for its exceptional acoustics, is one of the best conserved of its kind in the world. It is still used for musical and poetical contests and theatrical performances.

Sound at the theater of Epidaurus improved by limestone
Over the years, several theories were developed in order to explain the phenomenon, both by academics and amateurs.

Some of these theories suggest that prevailing winds carried sounds or that masks amplified voices.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered that the limestone material of the seats provides a filtering effect, suppressing low frequencies of voices and thus minimizing background crowd noise.

Moreover, the rows of limestone seats reflect high frequencies back towards the audience, enhancing the effect, noted Live Science.

“When I first tackled this problem, I thought that the effect of the splendid acoustics was due to surface waves climbing the theater with almost no damping,” noted mechanical engineer Nico Declercq. “While the voices of the performers were being carried, I didn’t anticipate that the low frequencies of speech were also filtered out to some extent.”

It is astonishing, nevertheless, that the Greek builders of the theater probably did not understand the principles that led to the exceptional audibility of sound from the stage.

The Greeks’ misunderstanding about the role the limestone seats played in Epidaurus’ acoustics likely kept them from being able to duplicate the effect.

Later theaters included different bench and seat materials, including wood, which may have played a big role in the gradual abandonment of Epidaurus’ design over the years by the Greeks and Romans, Declercq pointed out.

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