Caesarea Maritima

Caesarea Maritima

Παράλιος Καισάρεια
The ruins of Caesarea Maritima
Shown within Israel
Location	Caesarea, Israel
Region	Roman Judea, Syria Palaestina
Coordinates	32°30′0″N 34°53′30″E / 32.50000°N 34.89167°E / 32.50000; 34.89167Coordinates: 32°30′0″N 34°53′30″E / 32.50000°N 34.89167°E / 32.50000; 34.89167
Type	Settlement
History
Builder	Herod the Great
Founded	10 BC
Abandoned	1265
Periods	Roman Empire to High Middle Ages
Cultures	Roman/Byzantine; Crusader fortress
Site notes
Management	Israel Nature and Parks Authority
Website	Caesarea National Park

Caesarea Maritima (also Caesarea Palestinae;Greek: Parálios Kaisáreia, Παράλιος Καισάρεια) is an Israeli National Park in the Sharon plain, including the ancient remains of the coastal city of Caesarea.

The city and harbor were built under Herod the Great during c. 22–10 BC near the site of a former Phoenician naval station known as Stratonos pyrgos (Στράτωνος πύργος). It later became the provincial capital of Roman Judea, Roman Syria Palaestina and Byzantine Palaestina Prima provinces. The city was populated throughout the 1st to 6th centuries CE and became an important early center of Christianity during the Byzantine period, but was mostly abandoned following the Muslim conquest of 640. It was re-fortified by the Crusaders, and finally slighted by the Mamluks in 1265.

The name Caesarea (Καισάρεια) was adopted into Arabic as Qaysaria قيسارية . The location was all but abandoned in 1800. It was re-developed into a fishing village by Bosniak Muslim immigrants after 1884, and into a modern town of after 1940, in 1977 incorporated as the municipality of Caesarea (Hebrew Kesariya קיסריה) within Israel's Haifa District, about halfway between the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa.

The ruins of the ancient city, on the coast just about 2 km south of modern Caesarea, were excavated in the 1950s and 1960s and the site was incorporated into a new national park in 2011.