Actors on High: The Skene Roof, the Crane, and the Gods in Attic Drama

1990 The Regents of the University of California or removed much, if not all, of the traces of earlier strata. Even for the oldest usefullyreconstructed stratum (with terrace-wall, breccia foundation, and post-holes), it is disputed whether what survives is applicable to the fifth-century theater: Pickard-Cambridge and Newiger, for example, believe that it is, while Travlos argues that these traces are not early enough. Our uncertainty is well illustrated by the recent advocacy of the view that we have been wrong to imagine a circular orchestra for this period. 3 As for the the roof-level acting space, our conception of this will obviously be dependent upon how we recon-249struct the wooden skene building of the fifth century. By the very nature of the archaeological record, we cannot derive from it alone a view about what was built above the level of the first story (e.g. style and strength of roof, presence or absence of a second story). But we may compare two scrupulous reconstructions of the