The Pool and Pavilion, Lower Herodium

The volcano-shaped artificial mountain rises 2,460 feet (750m) above sea level. This mountain palace-fortress and the related lower palace and residential structures near the mountain’s base cover approximately 45 acres. Herod the Great completed this huge building project in one construction stage in 23 B.C.

At the foot of the artificial mountain, Herod built another complex of buildings. The outstanding extant feature of this vast lower complex was the pool, now dry, which covers most of the foreground of this photograph. The walls of large, rough-cut stones are over 9 feet deep, 210 feet long and 135 feet wide. In the center of the pool are remains of an island with a circular pavilion about 40 feet in diameter. A plan of the pavilion shows in dotted lines the base of 16 excavated piers in the pavilion whose exact function is unknown; the black circles show proposed positions for the inner and outer columns of the pavilion.

An aqueduct brought water to the pool even in the scorching heat of summer, from springs three and a half miles away. Here, in the middle of a desert was a true pleasure palace, in size and lavishness unique in Israel, and the third-largest palace in the entire Roman world.