Teatro Romano de Málaga does not announce itself the way an ancient theatre by rights should. Tucked beneath the Alcazaba’s walls, it is the city’s oldest monument, raised in the first century under Emperor Augustus and used for barely two hundred years before being abandoned to the weeds. What followed is the interesting part. Moorish builders, wanting stone for their eleventh century fortress above, simply ransacked the theatre’s marble columns and capitals, recycling still visible in the Alcazaba’s walls today. The theatre vanished under rubble and another building altogether, resurfacing only in the 1950s.

Visitors can trace its tripartite design: stage, orchestra and tiered seating, plus two arched vomitoria built to clear a crowd quickly once the show ended.

VoiceMap’s self-guided audio tours use the theatre as a hinge in Málaga’s layered history, tracing how Roman stone became Moorish fortress, and how a city keeps building on top of itself.