cryptae : KRIP-tie; KRIP-tay

(Latin; sing. crypta: vault, grotto, covered gallery/passage/arcade). Large curved barrel-vaulted corridor beneath the audience seating (cavea) for audience traffic. Large theatres may have more than one. These corridors ran from one side of the cavea to the other and were intercepted by a network of smaller corridors (vometoria) that allowed access to the cavea seating.