Browse Items (74 total)

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking west and shows a reconstruction of the Second Temple itself (after King Herod's renovations). The Holy of Holies would…

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking from north to south at the Antonia Fortress, which sat at the north edge of the Temple Mount complex (the Temple…

This photograph shows the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, originally commissioned in the 4th century CE by the emperor Constantine and built under the supervision of his mother Helen over a cave that they identified as the site of the birth of…

This photograph shows the landscape around the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus spent nearly all of his life.

This map shows the region of Galilee. The circle is around the city of Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. The arrows point to the places that Jesus went during his ministry: toward Tyre and Sidon, on the Phoenician coast, and around the Sea of Galilee.

This map of Israel/Palestine in the time of Jesus shows the locations of Bethlehem and Nazareth, the two central sites associated with the birth of Jesus. Note also the anachronism in the previous statement: the region was not called 'Palestine'…

This map shows the gradual expansion of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean between the years 100 BCE and 150 CE. Red areas indicate Roman control in 100 BCE; yellow areas indicate the extent of the empire at the time of Julius Caesar's death…

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 modern city of Nazareth, in Lower Galilee, shows the Church of the Annunciation, which was originally built in the 4th century CE by Helen, the mother of the emperor Constantine. It stands over the place where, according to…

This photograph shows the Arch of Titus, which was erected near the eastern entrance to the Forum of the city of Rome to commemorate Titus's defeat of the Jews and the taking of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The inscription at the top reads 'The Roman Senate…

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…

Julius Caesar was a Roman general, statesman, Consul, and author. Over the course of his military career he gained unmatched military power. When the Senate ordered him to lay down his arms and return to Rome, he refused and instead led a legion back…

This portrait—part of a mosaic floor found in the archaeological excavations at Beit-Shean—depicts Tyche (also known as Fortuna), the goddess of fortune. She wears a crown in the shape of the city walls and holds a horn full with fruit and vegetables…

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 details of the relief carving under the Arch of Titus, located near the eastern entrance to the Forum in Rome. The arch was erected by emperor Domitian, Titus' brother, to honor and commemorate the defeat of the Jews and 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 map shows the provinces of Roman control around the Mediterranean. The red circle is around Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire, and the arrow points to the city of Constantinople, which is where Constantine moved the capital of the Empire in…

This map represents the common scholarly opinion about what the layout of Jerusalem looked like after the Second Temple period. The Jewish Temple has been destroyed and, as many scholars believe, a new temple to the Roman god Jupiter has been erected…

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 aerial photograph of the Temple Mount compound, taken from the northeast, shows the large platform at its center, on which sits the Dome of the Rock. To the left of the Dome is the Al Aqsa Mosque, and in the close foreground (at the bottom of…

This photograph shows a vertical seam in the eastern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The 100 foot-wide southernmost stretch of the wall (the left half in the photo) is clearly Herodian construction and indicative of the King Herod's additions…

In this photograph the Dome of the Rock is visible in the upper left and the dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is visible in the upper right. Below them, Robinson's Arch is visible, springing out of the Western Wall (to the left). The tower rising up at the…

This photograph was taken underneath the Temple Mount, in the area known as Solomon's Stables (at the southern end of the Temple Mount, underneath the current Al Aqsa Mosque). Rather than being stables, they are cavernous halls that were built during…

This aerial photograph shows the southern part of the Temple Mount and its massive wall. In the foreground of this photograph is the spine of the hill that was the location of the City of David in the First Temple period. To the top right is the…

This aerial photograph of the modern Temple Mount, looking toward the northeast (with the Dome of the Rock roughly in its center and the gray dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque at its southern end), one can see just how large and well-built King Herod's…

In this drawing, the yellow pieces are those that have been found in archaeological excavations and the rest are an architect's reconstruction of how the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount probably looked in the Second Temple period: a…

This photograph shows the 'springer' for Robinson's Arch. In 1838, Edward Robinson noticed the strange, curved stones jutting out of the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount (to the upper left of center in this photograph). He realized that these…

The mosaic floor, stone-carved table, and stone vessels are from the Jerusalem Jewish Quarter excavations, which revealed the upper-class houses from the Second Temple period. As a result, we can say that, for instance, upper-class Jerusalemites in…

This photograph shows the detail of extra-long blocks that King Herod's engineers used to bind the existing exterior walls of the Temple Mount compound to the southern addition that he was building. Some of these blocks measure 39 feet long and weigh…

This inscription, written in Greek, was found in the City of David, south of the Temple Mount, in 1914. It can be dated, on the basis of script, to the reign of King Herod (37-4 BCE), and its content points to a synagogue having been built in…

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph shows the towers that were part of a defense system of Jerusalem constructed by Herod the Great at its western border to guard…

An especially high quality of pottery, modeled after Nabataean pottery, was produced in Jerusalem toward the end of the Second Temple period. It is very thin and delicate, with hand-painted designs that are impressive for this period. Note the lack…

This monumental staircase, located to the south of the Temple Mount compound (the wall of which is seen in the background) is one of two that led up to the Double and Triple Huldah Gates and into the Temple Mount. They were built as part of King…

This stone, with an inscription in Hebrew that reads, 'To the place of trumpeting to an(nounce)…,' was found in excavations at the base of the southwest corner of the Temple Mount (where many things were found that had been thrown off of the Temple…

These three doorways, which were blocked up after the Crusader period, led from the monumental steps on the south side of the Temple Mount into the Temple Mount and the area called Solomon's Stables. They were built into the base of the Temple Mount…

This photograph shows the Damascus Gate (one of the northern entrances into the Old City of Jerusalem) and a lower, earlier doorway of the Roman gate that stood at the same place. Above the arch is a worn inscription that reads 'Colonia Ae[lia]…

This bronze coin was minted in 131 CE and commemorates the rededication of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina (the inscription is in Latin and reads 'COL[onia] AEL[ia] KAP[itolina]'). The picture in the middle of the coin is the façade of the temple to…

This pool, just north of Jaffa Gate, on the west side of the Old City of Jerusalem, is one of several large reservoirs constructed to provide water for the expanding population of Jerusalem during the reign of King Herod the Great (37-4 BCE). It and…

This photograph shows the current day Damascus Gate (one of the northern entrances into the Old City of Jerusalem) and a lower, earlier doorway of the Roman gate of the city. Above the lower arch is a worn inscription that reads 'Colonia Ae[lia]…

This photograph shows Phasael's Tower, one of three towers built by King Herod the Great (37-4 BCE) as part of his defensive wall system on the western side of the city of Jerusalem. Herod named the tower after his brother, who was killed by the…

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking from north to south at the Antonia Fortress, which sat at the north edge of the Temple Mount complex (the Temple…

This plan shows what Jerusalem looked like in the late Second Temple period, prior to the Jewish revolt of 66-70 CE. The Jewish Temple occupied the Temple Mount and the upper-classes lived in the Upper City (known today as Mt. Zion), across the…

This map shows both the size of Herod's kingdom at the beginning of his reign (the purple areas that include Judaea, Perea, and Galilee) and the regions that were given to him later by his Roman benefactors, mainly the emperor Augustus (the lighter…

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking west and shows a reconstruction of the Second Temple itself (after King Herod the Great's renovations). The Holy of…

This map shows the gradual expansion of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean between the years 100 BCE and 150 CE. Red areas indicate Roman control in 100 BCE; yellow areas indicate the extent of the empire at the time of Julius Caesar's death…

This map shows the areas of Israel/Palestine that revolted against Rome in 66 CE (also known as 'the Great Revolt'), as well as the paths of attacks and counter-attacks that occurred during the four years of fighting. Pink areas (Galilee, Perea, and…

This slide shows the ways and degrees in which the Temple Mount in Jerusalem was expanded in the Hasmonaean (blue area) and Herodian periods (purple area).

This aerial photograph, looking straight down on King Herod's (37-4 BCE) palace at Herodium, clearly shows its double circular defense wall and four towers. Three of the semi-circular towers were defensive, while the completely round tower probably…

This aerial photograph of the southern portion of the city of Caesarea Maritima shows the huge theater that looks out toward the ocean and the setting sun. The land that juts out into the ocean at the lower left corner of the photo is the so-called…