Caesarea Maritima was an ancient and medieval port city on the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean, and later a small fishing village. It was the capital of Roman Judaea, Syria Palaestina and Palaestina Prima, successively, for a period of c. 650 years, and a major intellectual hub of the Mediterranean, from the time of Herod I until the Muslim conquest of the Levant. Today, the site is part of the Caesarea National Park, on the western edge of the Sharon plain in Israel.
The site was first settled in the 4th century BCE as a Phoenician colony and trading village known as Straton's Tower after the ruler of Sidon. It was enlarged in the 1st century BCE under Hasmonean rule, becoming a Jewish village, and in 63 BCE, when the Roman Republic annexed the region, it was declared an autonomous city. It was then significantly enlarged in the Roman period by the Judaean client king Herod I, who established a new harbour and dedicated the town and its port to Caesar Augustus as Caesarea.
During the early Roman period, Caesarea became the seat of the Roman procurators in the region. The city was populated throughout the 1st to 6th centuries CE and became an important early centre of Christianity during the Byzantine period. Its importance may have waned following the Muslim conquest of 640 when the city, then known in Arabic as Qisarya قيسارية, lost its status as provincial capital. After being re-fortified by Muslim rulers in the 11th century, it was conquered by the Crusaders, who strengthened and made it into an important port, and was finally slighted by the Mamluks in 1265.
Qisarya was a small fishing village in the early modern period. In the 1948 Palestine war its population fled ahead of or were expelled by the Zionist militant group Lehi and its houses demolished. The ruins of the ancient city beneath the depopulated village were excavated in the 1950s and 1960s for archaeological purposes, and in 1977, the site was incorporated into the modern municipality of Caesarea.
References:Kakesbeck is one of the largest medieval fortifications in Münsterland and the oldest castle in Lüdinghausen. The imposingly grown complex originated in 1120 as a motte, a small hilltop tower castle. After numerous changes of ownership, the castle was extended onto two islands, but it was not until the 14th century that it underwent significant alterations and extensions under the von Oer family. The estate experienced its heyday in the middle of the 18th century, when it covered an area of almost one square kilometre and consisted of five further outer castles in addition to the core castle, which were secured by ramparts and moats.
The well-maintained condition of the castle today is thanks to the late Wilfried Grewing, the former lord of the castle. The foundation named after him has been particularly committed to preserving the property since 2020.