Browse Items (41 total)

This photograph, looking east, shows the proximity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the two domes in the foreground) to the Dome of the Rock (in the background). The Mount of Olives and the Arab village of Et Tur (the smaller of the two towers on…

This photograph shows the proximity of the Western Wall (sometimes called the Wailing Wall) to the Dome of the Rock. The Western Wall, at the center of the photograph, is the western wall of the Temple Mount that was built by Herod the Great and on…

This photograph of the interior of the Dome of the Rock shows the symmetry of the architectural plan and the lavish geometric decoration adorning the walls and arches. Beneath the dome, at the center of the structure (just on the other side of the…

This is a photograph of the interior of the dome that sits on the Dome of the Rock. It was planned as a deliberate imitation of the vault over the Anastasis of the Holy Sepulchre; even the size of this hemisphere is within a few feet of the…

This photograph, taken from the top of the Temple Mount platform, shows the Dome of the Rock in the background and the Dome of the Spirits in the foreground. The Dome of the Spirits is one of several lesser shrines that dot the top of the Temple…

This photograph of the Dome of the Rock shows its octagonal structure and its golden dome. Beneath the dome, at the center of the structure is the bedrock called the Sakhra. For centuries it was misnamed the Mosque of Omar. Omar did erect a simple…

This photograph of the Temple Mount shows the relationship of the Dome of the Rock (the Kubbat as-Sakhra) to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Together they make up the Haram esh-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), the Islamic sanctuary created in the days of the…

This 3-dimensional reconstruction of the Temple Mount shows the various stages of construction, as well as the piece of bedrock (the Sakhra) that sits at the center of the Dome of the Rock (the Kubbat as Sakhra).

This close-up of the Dome of the Rock shows the beauty and riches of its present decoration. It was commissioned by Abd al-Malik in 687 CE and completed in 691 CE. Suleiman the Magnificent carried out extensive restorations of the building in the…

This photograph shows the Dome of the Rock (Arabic: "Kubbat as Sakhra") looking east. For centuries it was misnamed the Mosque of Omar. Omar did erect a simple wooden mosque at the site, but that was replaced by his successor Caliph Abd al-Malik, who…

This aerial view of the Temple Mount, which is looking west, shows not just the massive Temple Mount complex with its retaining walls and the Dome of the Rock, but also the Al Aqsa Mosque (to the left, at the south end of the Temple Mount complex).…

This fish-eye photograph was taken inside the Dome of the Rock. Above you can see the intricate artistic styling that decorates the underside of the dome; below you can see the section of bedrock around which the building was built. Muslims believe…

During the Hellenistic period (332-63 BCE) the city of Beth Shean enjoyed a revival and came to be known as Scythopolis, or 'City of the Scythians', perhaps as a result of a unit of the Scythian cavalry in the army of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. During…

Edward Gibbon, pictured here, was an English historian and a member of the British Parliament. He wrote a 6-volume work called The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire between 1776-1788. Although he was widely criticized for treating…

This 19th century lithograph shows two of three arches (there would have been another small arch on the right side of the large arch), which is typical of arches built during Hadrian's time. Arches built during Herod's time were typically double…

This picture shows the Ecce Homo arch, which was the large central arch of Hadrian's east forum. It stands over the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem outside the Sisters of Zion Convent. Note how more modern buildings have been built around…

This is a portrait of an Ottoman soldier. He carries a long rifle and has a pouch for gunpowder. The hat on his head is called a tarboosh.

This photograph shows a street of the Old City of Jerusalem today. People still use the same layout as Suleiman's city.

This map was found to be part of the mosaic floor of a 6th century CE church in Madaba, Jordan (east of the Dead Sea), and includes this map of Byzantine Jerusalem. A broad, column-lined street runs from the north gate south through the center of the…

This map shows the number of Arab villages on the eve of the arrival of the first Zionist colonies in the late 1800s. As you can see, Palestine was widely and fairly densely populated, which conflicts with Zionist claims about the land being largely…

This map of Jerusalem has a circle around the location of the modern Damascus Gate, one of the northern gates into the Old City of Jerusalem. The modern gate, which was built during the Ottoman period, sits atop a Roman gate that was built in the…

A look from the north at the Damascus Gate, which is one of the northern gates into the Old City of Jerusalem. The gate that you see at the center of the photograph, as well as the walls to its right and left, are Ottoman in date, built by Suleiman…

These two photographs show the actual T. E. Lawrence (on the left) and the other of the actor Peter O'Toole, who played Lawrence in the famous movie Lawrence of Arabia. T. E. Lawrence was a British Army officer who was trained as an archaeologist…

This is a famous photograph of Theodor Herzl at the First World Jewish Congress, looking over the Rhine in Basel, Switzerland. He was born in Hungary and became the founding leader of the Zionist movement. In 1895-1896, he wrote a seminal piece Der…

This photograph shows the British General Edmund Allenby entering Jerusalem after the British took the city in World War I. He dismounted and walked into the city out of respect for it and in contradistinction to the German Emperor Wilhelm II's entry…

Chaim Weitzman was the first President of Israel. Prior to his presidency, he is widely credited as the one who convinced the British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour to create the Balfour Declaration; he was also instrumental in its drafting. He…

This painting, called Napoleon At The Pesthouse of Jaffa, was painted by Antoine-Jean Gros in 1804. It is a fantastical representation of Napoleon meeting lepers when he arrived at Jaffa after being beat in battle by Jazzar Pasha.

This is a painting of Jazzar Pasha. He was a Serbian Ottoman soldier who defected and created his own mini-kingdom in Galilee that lasted for approximately 30 years. He successfully defended Acco against Napoleon in 1799. This is a painting of him…

The raking light in this aerial view of the Old City of Jerusalem, looking east toward the Judaean Desert, clearly shows the Old City walls, which were built according to the orders of Suleiman the Magnificent in the first half of the 16th century…

This is a painting of Vasco de Gama, Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India, and all the Orient for the Portuguese crown. He lived from ca. 1460-1524 and he is known for the leading the first sea voyage that circumnavigated Africa and found the…

This photograph shows Nebi Musa, located in the Judaean Desert, on the road from Jerusalem down to the Dead Sea. It was used as a stopping point for Muslims on their way from Jerusalem to Mecca. A hospice was in place for this purpose by the end of…

This photograph shows a small aedicule, a chapel built over the rock cut empty tomb believed to belong to Jesus. It stands at the center of the rotunda, the round architectural structure that was built there by the Crusaders and right underneath the…

This plan shows the original layout of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the time of Constantine and his mother Helen. The complex is made of 3 separate units: at the bottom of the plan, a basilica ending with an apse and Golgotha incorporated into…

This close-up of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is looking northwest, shows the two domes of the church: the Anastasis (the larger dome, on the left) and the dome over the basilica (the smaller dome, on the right). The entrance to the…

This photograph shows the cliff-side monastery called Choziba or St. George's Monastery, which is in the Wadi Qelt, approximately 3 miles west of Jericho, in the Judaean Desert. The monastery was established in the early fifth century, during the…

This photograph shows the interior of the Aedicule of the Anastasis, where Christians as early as the 4th century CE believed that Jesus' body was laid before his resurrection.

This photograph is taken from the Armenian chapel dedicated to Queen Helena (the mother of Constantine who was entrusted by her son to oversee the building of the church in the 4th century CE). The steps in the background are the 29 steps that lead…

This photograph shows a gold ring that depicts the Aedicule of the Anastasis at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was found in a 6th-century building south of the Temple Mount and shows the Anastasis as a free-standing structure (which was how it…

In the background of this aerial photograph of the Old City of Jerusalem we see the hills of the Judaean desert, as well as Transjordan in the distance. In the near distance, just beyond the city, is the Mount of Olives and Mt. Scopus. In the center…

This close-up aerial photo of the Old City of Jerusalem depicts the complex of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (at the bottom left, with the two grey domes). In the middle background is the Temple Mount and the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock.…

This view of the eastern slope of the City of David shows the steps leading down to the Gihon Spring (at the bottom of the photo, in the triangular shadow beneath the double window), 8th-7th century BCE walls and a Jebusite wall (immediately below…