Phase VIII Destruction
Jones (2021:3, Table 1) identifies a
second possible seismic destruction of the
Main Theater in Phase VII, noting that this
episode is difficult to date because the
structure had fallen out of use long before.
He suggests that the damage may relate
either to a late 6th-century earthquake
(i.e. the Inscription at Areopolis Earthquake)
or to a mid-8th-century event
(i.e. one of the earthquakes in the Sabbatical Year Earthquake sequence). More
recently,
Tholbecq (2022) proposed that the final
destruction of the Main Theater most
likely occurred in the mid-8th century CE
(Hammond Phase VIII). It is possible that
Jones (2021:3, Table 1) made a typographic error
and mislabeled Phase VIII as Phase VII.