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The Standing Stones of Yoxie is the remains of a building in a neolithic settlement called Pettigarths Field, about 4,000 years old, which also includes a megalithic tomb and Benie Hoose. The earlier assessment that the monument was a standing stone grouping has since been revised. It is now known to consist of a building partitioned into rooms. The 'standing stones' name is derived from the fact that the walls were built in part from megaliths, many of them still erect. The building was once about 18 by 11 metres in size, but little remains of the northern part. There is a main L-shaped block to the west, and a smaller forecourt to the east. There are no traces of door fixtures. A paved passage lined with stone boulders runs through the house, and traces of the paving continue through a circular room that it divides into two recessed sections.
The site seems to have been occupied for a long period of time. There is a local belief that the stones were used for ceremonies by Druid priests who lived at Benie Hoose – or even that druids still live there. However, the ruins are 4,000 years old. There is no written mention of Druids before around 200 BC, and no reliable sources even from later periods. Despite this the excavator, C.S.T. Calder, interpreted Yoxie as the remains of a temple, and Benie Hoose as a house that may have been used by the priests. He felt there were indications that this structure, and another similar one at Stanydale on Mainland, Shetland, were used for religious purposes. If so, they would have been the first known temples in the British Isles. However, early and middle neolithic society does not appear to have had complex social structures such as a priestly caste. It is now thought that both Yoxie and Benie are prehistoric houses.
Artifacts and material from the early and late Bronze Ages have been found. Some of the finds are Iron Age, while some date to the original Neolithic age settlement and others to a later occupation of the site in Iron Age. Pottery remains have been found in both houses. One large vessel found in Yoxie was very similar to a plain Bipartite Urn, possibly used for storing barley. More than 120 tools made of stone in a crude form have been unearthed in Yoxie.
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.