Caesaria and Mt Carmel...

Day one of our tour started by stopping at the town of Caesarea.  It’s a city by the coast that was built by King Herod the Great, or Antipas.  We got to see the theater there, and found out that the half circle area in front of the stage was known as the orchestra in Roman times.  This is the shape, not what it was used for.  The half circle is the word orchestra.  This is where the term orchestra comes from because the orchestra was in the semi-circle which, in Latin is the orchestra. 

Additionally we found out that the word for exit was vomitorium.  Thus the word which we use for … well, losing our food.  We got to see many of the famous Roman arches with the keystone which is the topmost stone in the arch where all the other stones res.

Our guide, Irit (pronounced eereet) is a lovely woman and is a Messianic Jew, which is a Jew who has accepted Christ.  Hopefully, I will be able to share a lot of the information that we receive without forgetting much. 

We got to see the Hippodrome where the chariot races were.  Yup, the one you saw in Ben Hur.  The tracking of the laps by the chariots was done a little differently than shown in the movie.  They had rings in colors matching the colors of the racers.  When the chariot would go by, a ring would be put up on a post to track the racer.  The first one to complete the laps was the winner.

The construction material of the area is sandstone which is what you get after having sand under high pressure for a great deal of time.  Caesarea was built as a port city with a seawall constructed to protected ships in the area.  For the Romans, the connection to Rome was important so a seaport was important.

King Herod’s palace was quite interesting because it had its own swimming pool.  There was an area built on the water side of the palace where a pool was put in so the king could enjoy his time in the  water.

King Herod dedicated the town to Caesar which is where the name of the city came from.  Caesarea was held by several different peoples over the years.  Finally the Crusaders held Caesarea when the Arabs attacked and overtook the town.  They destroyed it totally knocking the walls down.   It was never rebuilt after that.  The seaport was not important to the Arabs because their connection was to the East, not to Rome in the West.

Other places we saw were bathhouses and how they worked.  They actually had hot steam flow through pipes to create a room like a sauna.  They used scrapers to scrape off the dirt while their pores were open then the moved to a cooler pool to transition to finally a cold pool to close the pores.  There are some amazing mosaics in the bathhouses.  It was also interesting to see the drainage from the bathhouses right to the sea. 

We also saw a public restroom.  Only the rich had their own restrooms and they were INDOORS!  Were the Romans ahead of us or what.  The public restroom was a trough affair with water running down the trough and seating areas at intervals.  One did their thing. 

After Caesarea we went to Mt Carmel.  Carmel means Vineyard of God.  Hebrew for God is El.  Caram is vineyard so Caramel is vineyard of God.  Mt. Carmel was where Elijah won over the prophets of Ba’al.  It was interesting because Elijah had the water brought up to pour around the altar three times.  It’s a heck of a climb up the mountain and they had to go down into the valley to get the water.    Although where we were may not have been the exact place but it was the general area.  There is now a monastery on the top of Mt. Carmel.

Please bear with me on the pictures.  I cannot edit them on this computer at this time.  When I get home there will be many more and they will look much better.   

After Mt. Carmel, we went to Megiddo.  That is a fascinating place which I will go into detail about in my next post.