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 As part of a $27 million project that aims to triple tourist
numbers, scores of workers have erected scaffolding, cleared
rubble and begun excavations around the more than 2000-year-old
ruins.
Caesaria was a vibrant Roman metropolis built in honor of
Emperor Augustus Caesar by King Herod, who ruled Judea from 37
BC until his death in 4 BC.
Historians tell how the temple loomed above the ancient skyline,
perhaps as tall as the Acropolis in Athens, and could be seen
from afar by ships voyaging to the holy land.
Caesaria already draws about 1 million tourists each year who
can walk among the ruins of aqueducts and the region's oldest
surviving Roman theater.
The project's backers want to turn the city into a major
archaeological site in Israel, second only to Jerusalem. The
Israel Antiquities Authority hopes the temple restoration will
eventually triple the number of visitors.
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The first phase - a system of four vaults, or arches, that will be
restored on the temple platform - could be completed by the end of
the year.
"The whole experience of the visitor will be completely different.
He will be able to sense the atmosphere and actually understand the
essence of the building," said Doron Ben-Ami, an archaeologist with
the antiquities authority. "This is something that you don't get at
any other archaeological site today."
The dig has also unearthed some surprises, like a small
mother-of-pearl tablet engraved with a symbol of the Jewish menorah,
which is a seven-branched candelabrum.
($1 = 3.6406 shekels)
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Rinat Harash; editing by Richard
Lough)
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