The Roman historian Pliny disparaged the pyramids, an “idle and foolish exhibition of royal wealth.” They took fantastically immense amounts of labor: the Great Pyramids of Giza were constructed of huge stone blocks weighing up to 7.5 tons each, pulled for miles on wooden rollers by hundreds of thousands of workers. The royal pyramids were surrounded by mastabas of dignitaries hoping to enter the afterlife with the pharaoh.

The Israelites did not build on a similar scale. Nodiing remains of King Solomon’s Temple. Effort was expended on walls and waterworks; defense and drink came before glory. King Hezekiah dug a tunnel, which still remains, to channel the only nearby spring into the walls of Jerusalem.

Architecture flourished during the several centuries that the Roman Empire controlled the Middle East, especially under King Herod. Most of these structures have since been destroyed or plundered, leaving little but skeletons of aqueducts and amphitheaters to tell the tale of Roman might. The most impressive remains of this period are the ruins of Caesarea and the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a retaining wall of the Second Temple. In Jordan, the Romans spent a large part of their four-hundred-year domination building the stone cities of the Decapolis. Significant remains Utter Pella, Gedara (Umm Qeis), Gerasa (Jerash), and Pliiladelphia (Amman).