Odeon of Lyon

Along with other buildings in Lyon, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998, protecting Lyon's long history as a powerful city and its unique architecture.

[1] The ruins were still visible in the sixteenth century and was wrongly considered at the time as the amphitheater where the persecution in Lyon took place in 177.

Sometimes regarded as a theater or auditorium by various authors (Claude Bellièvre, Gabriel Simeoni, Guillaume Paradin), the monument appeared in several texts and plans and was eventually deemed as a cultural building.

The excavators date the building of the same period as the extension of the theater during the reign of Hadrian.

It has a 73 m (80 yd) diameter and a 3,000-seat capacity, which justifies its classification as Odeon, i.e. a covered building used for musical performances and reading public, less popular than the theater performances.