 Click Photo for Larger Version
|
Image ToolbarPlease read before you download
Images and/or text from holylandphotos.org are NOT TO BE USED ON OTHER WEB SITES, NOR COMMERCIALLY, without special permission. To request permission contact us at holylandphotos@gmail.com. |
View to the west-northwest from the Theater toward the Promontory Palace. The Palace stretches horizontally across the center of the image, just beyond the fencing. To the right are some reconstructed columns, and to the left of the columns the kurkar rock foundations to the palace are visible. The portion extending out into the sea contained a pool which was surrounded by covered colonnade (portico).
The large (almost 4 acres [1.6 ha.] in size) official palace extended out into the Mediterranean Sea. Researchers believe that the palace was built by Herod the Great (37–4 B.C.). A Latin inscription found in the administrative wing of the palace says ". . . good hope to the assistants of the office of the guards" (translation courtesy of Dr. B. Burrell).
This palace may have been the place where Paul appeared before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa II (Acts 23-26). Paul eventually appealed to Caesar for justice, and set sail from Caesarea to Rome about A.D. 60. For addtional information see K. Gleason et al.: "The Promontory Palace at Caesarea Maritima: Preliminary Evidence for Herod's Praetorium" in Journal of Roman Archaeology 11 (1998) 23-52.
