Cardo

After the Jewish rebellion led by Simon Bar Kokhba was crushed by Hadrian 130s CE, Jerusalem was destroyed. Hadrian built a Roman colony in its place, naming it Colonia Aelia Capitolina, after himself. Like many Roman colonies, Aelia Capitolina was laid out with a Hippodamian grid plan of narrower streets and wider avenues. The main north-south thoroughfare, the Cardo Maximus, was originally a paved avenue approximately 22.5 meters wide (roughly the width of a six lane highway) which ran southward from the site of the Damascus gate, terminating at an unknown point. The southern addition to the Cardo, constructed under Justinian in the 6th century CE, extended the road further south to connect the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with the newly-built Zion Gate Along its length, the roadway was divided into three parts: two colonnaded covered walks flanking a 12 meter wide road. The shaded porticoes provided separation of pedestrian traffic from wheeled carts, shelter from the elements, space for small-scale commerce, as well as opportunities for residents and visitors to gather and interact. The central open pavement provided commercial access as well as ritual space. The Cardo's most striking visual feature was its colonnade, clearly depicted on the Madaba Map.
Simple bases supported monolithic shafts, spaced 5.77 meters apart.[6] The shafts supported Byzantine-style Corinthian capitals -- intricately carved, but more stylized versions of their Classical counterparts. Although this combination of elements was uniform the preserved examples display some variation in the profile and size of the bases, and in the pattern of the capitals Despite aesthetic differences, the approximate height of the base, column, and capital units of the colonnade was five meters, a height which contributed to the spaciousness of the porticoes.The wall of the Cardo's eastern portico featured an arcade that housed various stalls and workshops leased by craftsmen and merchants.[9]
The line of the Cardo Maximus is still visible on Jewish Quarter Street, though the original pavement lies several meters below the modern street level. In the 7th century, when Jerusalem fell under Muslim rule, the Cardo became an Arab-style marketplace. Remains of the Byzantine Cardo were found in the Jewish Quarter excavations beginning in 1969