Cardo

View looking south along the cardo of the Lower City of Sepphoris.   The two main streets of the city were the north-south cardo and the east-west decumanus.  They were both 20 feet wide and paved with slabs of hard limestone laid in diagonal rows.  Please notice some of the ruts in the pavement from the many carts that brought goods to the shops in the city.

On both sides of the street notice the two mosaic-covered walkways.  These were covered porticos, the columns have been re-erected, and behind the portico were shops where most of the city's business and commercial activities took place from the second century onward.  (Weiss, p. 2029)

Early in the second century AD the city expanded eastward and boasted an impressive network of streets arranged in a grid, with two colonnaded streets, the cardo, and decumanus, at its center.  This area included public buildings, shops, residences, and religious structures.  Many mosaics were found inside of these structures.

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Weiss, Zeev.  "Sepphoris." Pages 2029-35 in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land — Vol. 5 — Supplementary Volume. Edited by Ephraim Stern, Hillel Geva, Alan Paris, and Joseph Aviram. Jerusalem and Washington, DC: Israel Exploration Society and Biblical Archaeology Society, 2008.