Experts from a university of technology armed with a brace of microphones have made 2,400 recordings that are said to have debunked claims of dazzling acoustics at the ancient theatre at Epidaurus in Greece and the idea that ancient Greeks had “this wonderful knowledge and were in touch with something magical” (Ancient Greek theatre’s claims prove unsound, 17 October). When I visited the theatre in 1963 with a fellow student, we took turns standing on the stone disc in the centre and dropping a crumpled sweet paper. We both heard the paper hit the stone from the top, farthest seats. Doubtless the acoustics would be somewhat muffled if the theatre were packed with human bodies but back then, when it was attended by perhaps a dozen or so visitors, the acoustics seemed pretty magical to a fine art student and an architecture student. Nothing we saw or heard that summer caused us to doubt that the ancient Greeks had indeed been in possession of wonderful knowledge and sensibility.
Michael Daley
Director, ArtWatch UK
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