A lavish royal theatre

EDGAR ASHER ISRANET

Further excavations at Herodium National Park have revealed King Herod’s private theatre, built with a “royal box” at its upper level. The latest excavations are a further indication of the luxurious lifestyle favored by the famed Judean monarch. The excavations, at the eastern edge of Gush Etzion near Jerusalem, were conducted by Prof. Ehud Netzer under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archeology.

The theatre is located halfway up the hill, close to Herod’s mausoleum, whose exposure in 2007 aroused worldwide attention. “The highly decorated, relatively small theatre was built in approximately 15 BCE, which was the year of the visit to Judea of Marcus Agrippa, second in the hierarchy of the Roman Empire,” said Netzer.

The royal box (measuring eight by seven metres and about six metres high) is the central space among a group of rooms attached to the upper part of the theatre’s structure. Its back and side walls are adorned with an elaborate scheme of wall paintings and plaster moldings in a style that has not been seen thus far in Israel; yet, this style is known to have existed in Rome and Campania during those years. This work likely was executed by Italian artists, perhaps sent by Agrippa, who a year before his visit to Judea met Herod on the Greek island of Lesbos.

On the upper parts of the walls are the room’s highlights: a series of unique “windows” painted with out-folded shutters on either side and various naturalistic landscapes within. They include scenes of the countryside, the Nile River and a nautical scene featuring a large boat with sails. Some of these windows survived intact; others were found in fragments on the floor and are undergoing restoration.

The data accumulated during the excavation proves that the theatre’s lifetime was very short, less than 10 years. Slightly before Herod’s death, it was deliberately destroyed in order not to disrupt the construction of an artificial hill. Parts of the theatre were temporarily used by the hill’s builders, who left their footsteps in the form of subdivision walls, cooking installations and graffiti.

^TOP