Details
Founded: 1300Category: Religious sites in Estonia
Historical period: Danish and Livonian Order (Estonia)
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The Church of St. John in Järva-Jaani was built around 1300 as a single-nave fortress church. The Neo-gothic tower was erected in 1881. There are some interesting historical artefacts in the church like Baroque-style pulpit made by Fr. Hoppenstätt in 1648.
Built around AD 90 to entertain the legionaries stationed at the fort of Caerleon (Isca), the impressive amphitheatre was the Roman equivalent of today’s multiplex cinema. Wooden benches provided seating for up to 6,000 spectators, who would gather to watch bloodthirsty displays featuring gladiatorial combat and exotic wild animals.
Long after the Romans left, the amphitheatre took on a new life in Arthurian legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the somewhat imaginative 12th-century scholar, wrote in his History of the Kings of Britain that Arthur was crowned in Caerleon and that the ruined amphitheatre was actually the remains of King Arthur’s Round Table.
Today it is the most complete Roman amphitheatre in Britain.
