Ceasarea

Travel Stories - Israël

introduction

I slept in Tel Aviv last night and the plan is to go to the archaeological site of Ceasarea today. First I have to go to the bus station where some kind of commotion is. There is an evacuation going on since an explosion has occurred. Whether this is a suicide attack is not clear.

The fact is that we all have to wait until the bus station is given “free” again. An hour later we can go inside and take the bus to the city of Hadera which is located about 5 km south of the site.

Then I have to get on another bus that takes me to the entrance of the tourist attraction that Ceasarea has become.

Herod the Great

Looking at my map of the site, I decide to go to the southern part first and decide at the end whether or not to go to the museum. Here is the Roman theater which has been adapted, extended and renewed by many other “people” over the centuries.

I read that for example that the platform from the 3rd century and that the great wall and the two towers were added in the 6th century AD during the Byzantine period. Thousands of Jews would have come to an end in this amphitheater after revolts against the Roman occupiers. Now there are plans to give performances again in the future.

Before I walk back to the big city walls I walk first to the sea where on a pointed rock there is a large ruin that was built during Roman times. This should have been the mighty summer palace surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea. Because during the summer his palace in Jerusalem was far too hot, Heriod went to Ceasarea. On these three sides the palace was equipped with imposing colonnades. In the middle of the palace was a large swimming pool.

Herod also had a bathhouse built in Roman style in his palace. In the days when Judea was a provincia, the Roman praefecti and procuratores chose the palace of Herod in Caesarea as their praetorium where they stayed all year. In this palace, among others, Apostle Paul would have been imprisoned for two years. Unlike Herod, they lived in the palace in Caesarea throughout the year. The water hole that you now see on the side would once have been the place where the fish market was held. You can hardly imagine that now.

There follows a large U-shaped open space where the Hippodrome was also called the “Herod” theater. Here, horse-drawn carriage races and other sporting events were held. Around 10,000 people could follow the races on this course that is 250 meters long and 50 meters wide. Just behind the racecourse you can still see the foundations of the old bathhouse - a number of pieces of beautiful mosaic have been preserved.

History of Ceasarea:

In the 4th century BC on the coast about halfway between nowadays Tel Aviv and Haifa was a tiny port town founded by the Phoenicians. They baptized it as "Strato's" tower. Later it became part of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great. Then it became a bone of contention between the Hellenistic empires of the Seleucids and Ptolemies before the Roman Empire took over.

Roman rule / Herod:

In the year 22 BC King Herod took over the site, so to speak, and wanted to make the city a grandeur of the world. He baptized the site "Ceasarea" after his Roman pattern Emperor Ceasar Augustus. Under Herod, Caesarea grew from a relatively insignificant village to the second city in the Jewish country. Herod had a large port built, with space for about 300 ships. The port was in the first century an intermediate station on one of the most important sailing routes from Alexandria to Rome and would compete with this great port city.

Pontius Pilate had a temple built in Caesarea in honor of Emperor Tiberius. On this temple the famous Pilate inscription was found that gave the world certainty that the man who ordered the execution of Jesus Christ had really existed. He would live here as a prefect from 26 to 36 AD. In the New Testament, Caesarea is mentioned several times as a transit route to Jerusalem. It is also mentioned that the apostle Paul was imprisoned for some time in Caesarea. During the Jewish Revolt (66-70), riots broke out in Caesarea as a result of tensions between Jewish and pagan populations in the city.

Crusaders

Like the rest of the country, the city then became part of the Eastern Roman Empire. In the year 640 Ceasarea fell to the Arabs and then declined. The first Crusaders arrived in the old port city in the year 1101. They discovered an old cup that was called the Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus would have used during the Last Supper.

Despite its location, the Crusaders nevertheless chose cities such as Akko and Jaffa as their most important port city; for that reason only a part of the once so large and powerful Ceasarea was refurbished and used. The city would go four times out of hand between the Crusaders and the Arabs until the Christian armies by French King Louis IX conquered it in 1251. Despite the new fortifications, the Muslims would conquer the city ten years later.

For about 600 years the city would be untouched, hidden under a deep layer of dune sand. A group of Bosnian Muslims would be stationed here in 1878 by the Ottomans who were in charge here by now. In 1948, during the war of independence, there occured passionately fighting around the ruins of Caesarea. When Israel claimed this land, farmers found pieces of the old city and archaeologists were soon invited.

Children from the established kibbutz Sdot Yam were treated to candy if they had found an interesting piece of stone. In the following years, the site was transformed into an extensive archaeological site followed by a place with a modern museum complex that you can visit.

The Crusaders city

I now walk through the gate of the old Crusader city. This is much smaller than the mighty Ceasarea from Herod time. This fortification including a moat was actually built by the French king Louis IX in the 13th century when he and his Crusaders conquered the city on the Arabs.

The walls that counted 16 watchtowers, encircle an area of say one kilometer long and are 13 meters high. Within these impressive walls you can see, among other things, an old Crusader church, but also a mosque (which was built here by the Turks for their Bosnian refugees in the late 19th century). I take a look at the old harbor which is now picturesque. The Crusader citadel, which you can climb, is located at this harbor.

If you continue to walk along the sea side, you can pass the walls on the north side. Here is "Strato's" tower, the oldest existing structure of the site. If you continue for a kilometer along the beach you will reach the old aqueduct. Because in the city ,extended by Herod, more water was needed than was available from natural sources, he builded a long aqueduct that brought water from the Karmel mountains to the city.

Now you can only see the skeleton of it. On the way back to the parking lot I pass parts of the old Byzantine and Roman city walls. It is still very hot and I decide to go back to Tel Aviv and refresh myself.

ACTUAL:

In 2015, a treasure of 9 kilos of gold was found by divers in the vicinity of the harbor of Ceasarea. It concerned two thousand gold coins (dinars, half dinars and quarter dinars) of about a thousand years old, the oldest of which dates from the second half of the ninth century. Most coins were minted at the time of two Fatimid caliphs, Abu 'Ali al-Mansur al-Hakim and his son Abu Hashim' Ali al-Zahir (early eleventh century).

Archaeologists discovered an approximately eighteen hundred year-old Roman mosaic in Caesarea on February 8, 2018. This happened during excavations of a building from the Byzantine era that is newer and later on the mosaic was set. The exposed mosaic measures 3.5 by 8 meters and shows the figure of a man with a gown in the middle of geometric patterns.

The depicted figure can be the owner of the property.

tips & advice (2004)

There are a number of buses (number 76) per day from Hadera to the site of Ceasarea.