These are the stories you can open in the 3D view, each at its own numbered point on the model.
1A theatre facing the lake
This is the ancient theatre of Ohrid, built at the end of the 3rd or the start of the 2nd century BC, in the late Hellenistic period, when the town on this hill was Lychnidos. Its seats are set into the slope below the fortress, and the audience faces south-south-east, over the roofs to the lake and the Galičica ridge. As mapped today, the half-round of the theatre is about 51 metres across.
The seats are blocks of grey limestone laid in curved rows and split into wedges by narrow stairways. Excavators uncovered nine rows of the ancient seating; the rows above them were restored. Some blocks still carry the names of the people who held those seats, among them Crispus and Topos. Sit for a moment and look down at the orchestra, as the audience did two thousand years ago.
After the Roman conquest of 148 BC the theatre changed its purpose. It was rebuilt for fights between gladiators and with wild animals: the lowest rows of seats were removed, cages were built, and a protective wall was put round the orchestra to keep the audience safe. Stand in the middle of this circle of packed earth and stone, where the shows once took place.
The theatre grew over time. Later an upper tier of seats, called the epitheatron, was added above the original rows, and with it the theatre could hold about 5,000 people, according to the museum in Ohrid. Today the curve ends in a retaining wall and a path along the top, and the old houses of the town stand right behind it, with the fortress walls on the skyline.
Two marble reliefs from the theatre have survived. They show Dionysus, the god of wine and of the theatre, together with the Muses, the goddesses of the arts. The reliefs are kept in the museum today rather than here on the site. Beyond the modern stage, the low stone foundations belong to the ancient stage building, in front of which the plays were performed.
After antiquity the theatre was buried under earth and later houses, and forgotten. According to the museum in Ohrid, it was first excavated in 1935, with more work in 1959 and 1960 and again from 1977 to 1984. Some other sources say it was uncovered by chance in the 1980s; the sources disagree, and the museum's dates are the more detailed account.
Since 2001 the theatre has been used for performances again, among them events of the Ohrid Summer Festival. For the season a stage of timber and steel is set up over the front of the orchestra, and a timber walkway with a railing now runs round the lowest row. These are modern additions; the stone seats and the curve of the cavea are the ancient theatre.
