Before proceeding to Mount Carmel in the city of Haifa, we made a pit-stop at the ruins of an ancient city
founded by Herod the Great in 25 BCE. The Caesarea
Maritima is an ancient city situated on the coast of Mediterranean Sea on
the edge of Sharon Plain. Despite being flattened by passage of time with scattered
ruins today, this old city formerly known as Strato's Tower, still abounds with historical remnants of a
glorious past.
Caesarea Maritima
flourished as a major port city during the height of the Roman Empire. After
Herod's death, it started to witness a tumultuous period before seeing a
rebirth during the Byzantine period. In the middle ages, the city of Caesarea
was conquered by Muslim invaders and became under the Rashidun Caliphate until
the Crusaders liberated the city in the 11th century.
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| Me, posing beside the ruins of the Roman double aqueduct |
In the aftermath of the
First Crusade, the city was declared as a lordship within the Kingdom of Jerusalem
before Saladid—the first sultan of Syria and Egypt and the founder of the
Ayyubid Dynasty—briefly recaptured it as a Muslim city in 1187.
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| Standing on the grounds of the Herodian hippodrome |
The Third Crusade of 1191
took control of the city back to the hands of the Crusaders. Eventually,
Caesarea succumbed to Mamluk warriors of Sultan Baibars—the fourth Sultan of
Egypt—in 1265.
In the ensuing centuries,
Caesarea became part of the Ottoman Empire (1516) before being deserted in
ruins for many years before immigrants from Bosnia called the Bushnaks, settled
here in 1884.
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| Roman double aqueduct was used to bring water from the foot of Mt. Carmel to Caesarea |
In 1961, the Pilate Stone,
the "only archaeological item that mentions the Roman prefect Pontius
Pilate, by whose order Jesus was crucified" was discovered in this ancient
city.
Today, a great deal of
ruins still stands over the old site of the ancient city of Caesarea—adjacent
to the modern town inhabited by more than 4,000 people.
