Browse Items (25 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…

This famous photograph shows the handshake between Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yassir Arafat, the Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, after signing the Declaration of Principles of the Oslo Peace Accords at the…

This is a photograph of Yitzhak Rabin, who was the Israeli Prime Minister who signed the Oslo Peace Accords with Yassir Arafat (the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization) in 1993. He was assassinated in 1995 by a Israeli man who was…

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…

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 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 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…

This is a photograph of Anwar Sadat, the third President of Egypt. He was the first Arab leader to visit Israel in 1977 and he signed a peace treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1979, following the Camp David Accords. He was…

This map shows the Rhodes Armistice Line, which delineated Israel from Transjordan after the 1948-1949 War. The armistice line provided Israel with the area that is shaded blue; the West Bank and Gaza were given to Jordan and Egypt, respectively,…

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 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 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…