# UNESCO lists the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus, including the ancient theatre still used for tragedy

Date: 1988

## The fact

In 1988 UNESCO inscribed the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus. The theatre, a principal modern venue for the Athens-Epidaurus Festival’s [Aeschylus](/people/aeschylus) productions, is inside that property. The listing is a completed conservation act.

## Context

Festival tragedy is a tourist-and-civic hybrid. Conservation of limestone seating is not a Loeb. Split modern productions onto festival rows if dated.

Aeschylus is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

UNESCO list 491 and the festival’s public site independently describe the theatre as living heritage.

Official or archival record: UNESCO — Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/491/; UNESCO World Heritage Centre).

## Significance

Conservation-and-access path. Medium confidence.

A festival ticket is not a fifth-century choregic win.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Epidaurus was listed in 1988. Not established: that Aeschylus walked that cavea.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [humanitarian-access](/drivers/humanitarian-access). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here. Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is humanitarian-access. The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Aeschylus: https://factrail.ai/people/aeschylus

## Drivers

- Humanitarian Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/humanitarian-access

## Sources

- https://www.greekfestival.gr/en/
- https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/491/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-epidaurus-unesco-1988