Guide
The ancient theatre of Bodrum was built in the fourth century BC, in the reign of the satrap Mausolus, and stands north of the town centre. It is among the oldest theatres in Anatolia.
The theatre seats 13,000, with fifty-five rows in all — thirty in the lower part and twenty-five in the upper — and a gap of forty centimetres left between each seat in the cavea. Eleven stairways running up the slope divide the seating into twelve sections.
Among its notable features are the altar on which sacrifices were made to Dionysos before the plays, and holes between some of the seats that may have been used to hold awnings.
The theatre was restored in the 1970s by a group of Turkish people, and the most recent restoration was carried out by the municipality of Bodrum together with Ericsson and Turkcell. It hosts many of the cultural events held in Bodrum today.
