Caesarea Maritima. Fortified city in the Near East.
Picard| N° d'inventaire | 18654 |
| Format | 23.2 x 28.7 |
| Détails | 375 p., color illustrations, hardcover. |
| Publication | Paris, 2014 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | |
Founded by Herod the Great to become a port capable of rivaling Alexandria, Caesarea Maritima was magnificently adorned to serve the designs of this builder king. Overflowing its primitive walls, the capital of Roman, then Byzantine, Palestine prospered for several centuries, until its conquest by Muslim armies in the 6th century. Assaulted during the First Crusade, the city received an impressive corset of towers and walls under Saint Louis; lacking defenders, it could not resist the troops of Sultan Baibars in 1265. Destroyed from top to bottom by the victor, Caesarea slept until the end of the 19th century; for more than fifty years, intensive clearance and excavation campaigns have made it one of the major archaeological sites in the Near East. Four successive enclosures (Herodian, Byzantine, ancient Islamic and Crusader) form as many nested shells for this city rediscovered by excavation; They are completed towards the sea by a castle and a citadel built on an ancient theater. Using the surveys and excavations of the French archaeological mission dedicated to these fortifications, Jean Mesqui, a specialist in medieval architecture, and his colleagues offer a reinterpretation of Caesarea, a unique testimony to the fortified cities of the Near East.
Founded by Herod the Great to become a port capable of rivaling Alexandria, Caesarea Maritima was magnificently adorned to serve the designs of this builder king. Overflowing its primitive walls, the capital of Roman, then Byzantine, Palestine prospered for several centuries, until its conquest by Muslim armies in the 6th century. Assaulted during the First Crusade, the city received an impressive corset of towers and walls under Saint Louis; lacking defenders, it could not resist the troops of Sultan Baibars in 1265. Destroyed from top to bottom by the victor, Caesarea slept until the end of the 19th century; for more than fifty years, intensive clearance and excavation campaigns have made it one of the major archaeological sites in the Near East. Four successive enclosures (Herodian, Byzantine, ancient Islamic and Crusader) form as many nested shells for this city rediscovered by excavation; They are completed towards the sea by a castle and a citadel built on an ancient theater. Using the surveys and excavations of the French archaeological mission dedicated to these fortifications, Jean Mesqui, a specialist in medieval architecture, and his colleagues offer a reinterpretation of Caesarea, a unique testimony to the fortified cities of the Near East.