Caesarea Old City

Caesarea Maritima, formerly Strato's Tower, also known as Caesarea Palestinae, was an ancient city in the Sharon Plain on the coast of the Mediterranean, now in ruins and included in an Israeli national park.

The city and harbour were built under Herod the Great during c. 22–10 or 9 BCE near the site of a former Phoenician naval station known as Stratonos pyrgos, probably named after the 4th century BCE king of Sidon, Strato I.

It later became the provincial capital of Roman Judea, Roman Syria Palaestina and Byzantine Palaestina Prima provinces. The city was populated throughout the 1st to 6th centuries AD and became an important early centre of Christianity during the Byzantine period, but it was destroyed during the Muslim conquest of 640, after which it lost its importance.