The amphitheater would seat 6,000; with three levels. Of course the favored sat close to the stage area.

I don't believe that they had good cushions to sit on, but I wasn't there.

The steps were added for safety purposes. When I was there, several school groups were touring.

This Roman Frieze is in the museum. There is a fee for admission.

You enter through the museum, that is a block away and then you wend your way through several levels to come out at the top of the cavea.

Here is a close view of the stage, with a width of more than 140 feet. Based on the height of some of the columns, it was determined the height was about 48 feet. That is a big stage.

This view is from the stage area. It is some of what the performers saw.

We have moved away from the Roman Theater. (I am not sure on the 're' or 'er' at the end of that word.)

I do not know what this was originally, but work was progressing (slowly it appeared) to refurbish it. This was near the Roman Theatre

This post was edited by Jim-1 on Wed, Jul 30, 14 at 14:45

Hans Christian Andersen spent time in Cartagena and Murcia in 1862 and wrote about his trip in his book, "A Journey Through Spain." (That should be underlined, but I cannot make that happen on this forum!)

Spottorno is a Spanish last name. Thus, the Spottorno House.

That's one good sized theater, only football stadiums are big here. Interesting that it was discovered so late. Wonder what covered it up over the centuries.

Seating capacity - if there were 6,000 people, then they were sitting close to each other. What is amazing, is that this is only a semi-circle. A full arena would hold more than 10,000. That is much larger than many college basketball venues.

It seems that as control of the area changed (it happened all over western Europe, but particularly Spain), buildings would be trashed and the foundation used for something else. That was common with many of the churches we saw. A mosque would be taken down and the foundation for a Christian church would be built. After the Byzantines were in control in southeastern Spain, there were many other cultures that were there. They did not really care about digging up the past (that's a pun). The only way that this theater was found was due to new construction standards mandated better foundations and thus they went digging. And, what do you know, there was a Roman theater. What they were going to build there was cancelled.

This photo shows some of the different ways of constructing things at the amphitheater site.