Caesarea Maritima

Caesarea Maritima

Caesarea was build by Herod the Great

one of his 10 major building projects

He wanted to be remembered

It had a theater with marble seats

 The great acoustics came from the Mediterranean sea

Herod used 2.000.000 Granite & marble columns in his building projects

imported from Greece & Italy

the columns weighed so much

we have no idea how he got them here

Ceasarea was a magnificent city

a 26 acre palace complex ( Caesar in Rome had a 9 acre palace)

Hippodrome with 350.000 seats (2nd largest had 60.000 seats)

light house

a temple to Caesar Augustus

Arena

and a harbour in the area known as "death for ships"

in 2007 we had a faith lesson by this sarcophagus

picture from the web, to show the palace and hippodrome 

Herod could see the horses turning from his palace

The Hippodrome  and the harbour

The harbour was 400 acres 20x the next largest at the time

self cleaning, didn't fill with silt

footings made with poured concrete in salt water

100' deep one mile out into the Mediterranean

Nobody really knows how he did it

walking down to the ruins of the palace

The apostle Paul was here

He wrote "prison letter" here

  When the cavalry arrived in Caesarea, they delivered the letter to the governor and handed Paul over to him.  The governor read the letter and asked what province he was from. Learning that he was from Cilicia,  he said, “I will hear your case when your accusers get here.” Then he ordered that Paul be kept under guard in Herod’s palace.

he started his teaching tour from the harbour here 

Luke put the lives of the apostles 

and the Herods often beside each other

"that the world would know there is a God"

As usual King Herod built a swimming pool 

as part of his palace complex

Around the pool was seating for 1200 people

Everywhere you can find pieces of marble

you have to look for them and some

 like Moria are better at finding them

We put this big piece back where we found it

Herod was likely the richest man who ever lived

In the desert we'd been near En Gedi to visit a building

It looked strange

with a pit on the outside

and rooms not connected with doors but holes to pass

things from one room to the next

When the archeologists found this, they were not sure what it was

residue in the vats was found to be balsam

a family patent recipe for the Herods

balsam is an aphrodisiac

in ancient times it sold for $1.000.000 an ounce

 

 

To ship the balsam all over the world the Herods used 

the harbour of Caesarea

 we walked around Ceasarea, to get an idea how big this place is

we are here half way the original hippodrome 

What happened to Herod the Great's dream to be remembered?

most people only know that he killed the babies in Bethlehem

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.