Monday, 21st November 2005
Christopher J. Brandon (Haifa University)
CAESAREA MARITIMA: THE WORLD'S FIRST LARGE-SCALE ARTIFICIAL HARBOUR
Caesarea Palestinae, commonly referred to as Caesarea Maritima, was built between 22 and 9 BC and, when complete, was one of the largest Roman ports in the Mediterranean. Located on the coast of Israel, the remains of this once magnificent harbour now lie scattered across the sea bed. The drowned moles that once enclosed 200,000mē of sheltered water remain an impressive monument to King Herod's single-mindedness and Roman engineering ingenuity. Built along a straight exposed coastline, the architects designed a harbour that incorporated hydraulic concrete in the foundations and core of the enclosing moles. Some time in the Republican period, perhaps in the 3rd but certainly by the 2nd century BC, Roman builders discovered, probably by accident, how to create hydraulic structural concrete. Its use in underwater structures is described by Vitruvius but prior to the building of Caesarea it had only been used in comparatively small-scale projects. The building of Caesarea represented a massive logistical enterprise with the shipping of thousands of tons of volcanic ash, pozzolana for the concrete, from Italy and enormous quantities of timber, for the formwork, from Turkey across the Mediterranean to Israel. The ingenuity and quality in the design and construction of the formwork is astonishing and because of the disastrous tectonic-induced settlements that drowned the harbour within a relatively short time after its completion, these examples of Roman maritime engineering have been preserved for us to study.
This lecture describes the design and technology used by Herod and his Roman engineers to build this, the world's first large-scale artificial harbour.
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