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Published online 23 March 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news070319-16

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Why the Greeks could hear plays from the back row

An ancient theatre filters out low-frequency background noise.

The wonderful acoustics for which the ancient Greek theatre of Epidaurus is renowned may come from exploiting complex acoustic physics, new research shows.

The theatre, discovered under a layer of earth on the Peloponnese peninsula in 1881 and excavated, has the classic semicircular shape of a Greek amphitheatre, with 34 rows of stone seats (to which the Romans added a further 21).

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