In Caesarea National Park, all the sights are marked by the breath of antiquity and grandeur. This city was built by the great and terrible Herod, king of Judea.
Built in record time in the style of Roman cities and on an extraordinary scale, Caesarea had already reached, before the Common Era, a level of development that some medieval European capitals could not even dream of. There were aqueducts, a sewage system, and running water here.
On the cape jutting out into the sea, Herod the Great placed his residence. The Palace on the Reef was a two-story structure, built according to the canons of ancient Roman architecture - with a spacious atrium, terraces, colonnades, and luxurious mosaic floors.
The sea surrounded the royal palace on two sides, and from the land it was separated by three rows of columns, the remains of which can still be seen here today. A large rectangular pool, which was located in the center of the atrium, has also survived to our times.
For quite a long time, historians believed that there was a fish market here, and that fish were bred or kept fresh in the pool. Only in 1992 was confirmation found that the palace belonged to Herod, and after him to the governors and procurators of Judea. Along the covered colonnade of the Palace on the Reef once walked the procurator Pontius Pilate, in a white cloak with a blood-red lining…
