The virtual reconstruction of the ancient Roman concert hall in Aphrodisias, Turkey

About two thousand years ago one of the world’s earliest and most beautiful concert halls were built in the city Aphrodisias, named after the goddess Aphrodite. It was a rich society, renowned for its marble and mastery in sculptures. Like many other cities in the Roman Empire there was an open-air theatre for plays and a roofed theatre, Odeon, for concerts. In the framework of an EU-project the Odeon or concert hall has been reconstructed in a virtual environment, visually and acoustically. The capacity of the hall was around 1000 in the audience. There has been some uncertainty about the original height of the ceiling; but with the suggested reconstruction the reverberation time with a full audience is around 1.6 s at mid frequencies. The influence on the acoustics of various architectural elements has also been studied. The virtual reconstruction, including some auralization examples with reconstructed music, has been made with the ODEON room acoustic modelling program. From January 2006 the reconstructed concert hall will be open for visitors, although in a virtual environment. The address is: http://www.at.oersted.dtu.dk/~erato.