Image Details

PHOTO BY MARK LETTENEY, COURTESY OF IAN STERN, DIRECTOR

MAGNIFICENT MARESHA. During the Hellenistic period, some cities flourished. Maresha was one of them. Located between Jerusalem in the Judean hills and Gaza on the Mediterranean coast, Maresha served as a commercial center for the Ptolemies in the third century BCE and an administrative center for the Seleucids in the second century. Its inhabitants enjoyed many luxuries, including fine pottery (see kraters shown here), and buried their dead in decorated tombs.