Just outside of Castletown, Balladoole is one of the Isle of Man’s most impressive ancient monuments.
Balladoole has been the site of many excavations that have revealed a number of significant finds including prehistoric flints, Bronze Age burials, Iron Age earthworks and early Christian lintel graves.
A Viking boat burial which dates back to between 850-950 AD was discovered in 1945 by a German refugee and a team from the internment camps based on the Island. The group were originally looking for an Iron Age hill fort but found the burial instead, lying within early Christian lintel graves, which contained a 36ft long Viking ship and the bodies of a man and woman.
In 1918, an ancient Keeill chapel dating between 900AD and 1000AD and a Bronze Age grave dating to 10000 BC were also discovered at the Balladoole site in an area now known as Chapel Hill.
Information boards are provided next to each section of the site and for more information on the history of the site as well as dioramas of the burial and artifacts from the excavation, visit the Viking Gallery in the Manx Museum in Douglas.
References:The ancient Argos Theater was built in 320 BC. and is located in Argos, Greece against Larissa Hill. Nearby from this site is Agora, Roman Odeon, and the Baths of Argos. The theater is one of the largest architectural developments in Greece and was renovated in ca 120 AD.
The Hellenistic theater at Argos is cut into the hillside of the Larisa, with 90 steps up a steep incline, forming a narrow rectilinear cavea. Among the largest theaters in Greece, it held about 20,000 spectators and is divided by two landings into three horizontal sections. Staircases further divide the cavea into four cunei, corresponding to the tribes of Argos A high wall was erected to prevent unauthorized access into the theatron and may have helped the acoustics, but it is said the sound quality is still very good today.
Around 120 CE, both theaters were renovated in the Roman style.