Page 169 - A Walk to Caesarea / Joseph Patrich

A Walk to Caesarea: A Historical-Archaeological Perspective 155

Fig. 174
A table plate adorned with
inlaid golden glass tesserae

The Antiquities Museum in Kibbutz Sdot Yam

The museum is located in the southern part of the kibbutz, next to the Hannah
Szenes House; it was established by a kibbutz member, Aharon Wagman. In the
museum’s courtyard, surrounded by lush greenery, is a rich collection of columns and
capitals – Doric, Ionian, and Corinthian as well as other architectural elements –
parts of friezes and cornices. Around the courtyard are the exhibition halls in
which there is an impressive array of statues, reliefs, small sculptures, inscriptions
(in Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic), pottery vessels and oil lamps,
terracotta figurines, a rich collection of coins, gems, dice and toys, as well as anchors,
jugs, and other findings tossed out by the sea or retrieved in underwater excavations.
Findings from the Caesarea synagogue are also on exhibition there. The exhibit
is accompanied by explanatory signs about the different items and the history of
Caesarea. The free sculpture collection is mainly marble. No statue is intact. In
some instances, only the head remained, such as the marble head of Hadrian (Fig.
22, above, p. 23). The most impressive is the statue of the “Tyche of Caesarea”
described above (Fig. 26, p. 26). Also displayed in the museum is a fragment of a
second marble statue of this type, of which only the right foot resting on a ship’s
prow has survived, with the headless genius of the harbor at its side. There are a
variety of statues of Aphrodite; a headless statue of Athena; statues of headless
and limbless Asclepius and his daughter Hygieia; the torso of a man wearing armor