Browse Items (337 total)

This photograph shows a page from the Codex Vaticanus, which was created in the 4th century CE and is arguably the most important ancient manuscript of the Greek Bible. Codex Vaticanus originally contained both the Old and the New Testaments, but…

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 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 central panel of the mosaic floor in the fourth century synagogue at Hammat Tiberias. The stones running through the middle of it are a later wall that was built in such a way as to destroy the mosaic. At the center of the…

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 shows the upper panel of the mosaic floor in the center of the fourth century synagogue at Hammat Tiberias. It is the last panel that a worshipper would see/walk across as he walked toward the standing Torah shrine on the southern…

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 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…

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 photograph shows a close-up of one of the panels of the mosaic floor in the 6th century CE synagogue at Beit Alpha. The panel tells the story of the Akedah, or the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19). At the left two servants stand with a beast…

This photograph shows a close-up of the figure at the center of the zodiac that is in the central panel of the mosaic floor in the fourth century synagogue at Hammat Tiberias. This very fine mosaic shows a depiction of the sun god Helios riding his…

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…

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 is a photograph of the synagogue of the ancient city of Tiberias. Several synagogues were built on this site over the centuries; much of the architecture that you see here dates to the 5th-8th centuries CE. The mosaic floor that you will see in…

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 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 bronze coin, which was minted in Rome in 71 CE after the Romans captured Jerusalem, features the profile of the Emperor Vespasian on the recto (left), and, on the verso (right), a Roman soldier standing over a mourning woman who symbolizes the…

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 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 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…

This map shows the extent of the British Mandate of Palestine, which includes Palestine and Transjordan. Note that Syria was a French mandated territory after WWI.

This photograph shows Winston Churchill (second from right), who was at that time the British Colonial Secretary, meeting with Emir Abdullah of Transjordan (fourth from right) and Sir Herbert Samuel (between them), who was the High Commissioner of…

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 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 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 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,…

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.

In this view from the hill of Hattin, looking NE, the cliffs of Mt. Arbel and the Sea of Galilee are in the background. The valley to the left of Arbel is the valley that the army of Saladin climbed from Tiberias to the plateau underneath Hattin…

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…

On this map the red circle surrounds the site of the Battle of Hattin, which took place on a small plateau to the west of the city of Tiberias. To the right is the northwest tip of the Sea of Galilee and to the north are the hills and peaks of Upper…

This picture provides a close look at the Galilee region, and highlights the 3 important sites for the Battle of Hattin (on July 4, 1187) between the Crusaders and Saladin. The red circle delineates the port city of Acre, where the Crusaders…

This photograph shows a close-up of the fortifications around Nimrod's Castle, including the main defensive wall and its rounded towers. The castle is located in the modern-day northern Golan Heights, on the southern slopes of Mt. Hermon, and guards…