Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Good news: Israel builds underwater museum in Caesarea

Time for good news for a change...

It was the largest, most impressive port in the Roman Empire when it was inaugurated in 10 BCE. And some 2,016 years later, the ancient port of Caesarea - along the Mediterranean coast of Israel - was inaugurated again last week, this time as the world's first underwater museum.


It's not your ordinary museum tour. Visitors float from one 'exhibit' to the next, marveling in silence at the untouched remains of a once-glorious harbor: a Roman shipwreck, a ruined lighthouse, an ancient breakwater, the port's original foundations, anchors, pedestals.

"It's a truly unique site," said Sarah Arenson, a University of Haifa maritime historian and participant in the project. "This port was built as the state-of-the-art port of the Roman Empire, and made the other ports of the time, including those of Rome, Alexandria and Piraeus, look small and out-of-date by comparison."

Arenson notes that the port is also unique today: "There are no other ancient ports in the world that are accessible to ordinary divers," she told ISRAEL21c. Some such ports are restricted to authorized scientists. Others may be open to any diver, but would be meaningless to such visitors "because," explains Arenson ,"all you would see is a bunch of stones."


And what does the visitor see?
