Greek Theatre Acoustics: The Seat Positioning Made it Work

New research has revealed how ancient Greeks could hear a play from the back row of their large theatres.

Now Nico Declercq and Cindy Dekeyser of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta say that the key is the arrangement of the stepped rows of seats. They calculate that this structure is perfectly shaped to act as an acoustic filter, suppressing low-frequency sound -- the major component of background noise -- while passing on the high frequencies of performers' voices

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Declercq and Dekeyser suspected that the answer might be connected to the way sound reflects off corrugated surfaces. It has been known for several years now that these can filter sound waves to emphasize certain frequencies, just as microscopic corrugations on a butterfly wing reflect particular wavelengths of light. The sound-suppressing pads of ridged foam that can plastered on the walls of noisy rooms also take advantage of this effect.

The article indicates that they don't know if this construction was deliberate or not, but how could it not be? As the article points out, Vitruvius, a 1st century BCE Roman architecture expert wrote that the ancients understood how to amplify voice through mathematics and the "method of music." Certainly, they may have stumbled upon the technique by accident, but its clear that they knew a good thing when they heard it.