Browse Items (337 total)

This aerial view of Tel Be'er Sheva shows the 8th century BCE outline of the Israelite city and gives an idea of the aridity of the Negev desert. The city was built in the 10th-9th century BCE by first constructing a platform surrounded by a moat.…

This photograph of one of the many the Early Bronze Age towers at Arad reveals defenses typical of the period. The towers, 10-12 feet in diameter and found at 65-80 foot intervals, projected out from the wall, thus exposing any attacker attempting to…

The story of Sinuhe has been preserved on numerous papyri and ostraca. This manuscript is written in an Egyptian script called hieratic, which is closely related to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and dates to the Egyptian 12th Dynasty (ca. 1991-1785 BCE). It…

Writing was invented in southern Mesopotamia, in the ancient kingdom of Sumer, sometime before 3,000 BCE. Cuneiform, the type of writing seen in column 6 of this slide, was a development from earlier 'logographic' writing, in which signs stood for…

The Suez Canal is a narrow waterway connecting the Red Sea (the large body of water in the image) to the Mediterranean Sea, barely visible at the top. The Suez Canal is on the top left side of the Sinai Peninsula. The Canal was originally designed in…

This photograph shows a page from the Codex Sinaiticus, which was created in the 4th century CE. The extant pages (400 of an estimated 730) contain the oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament. It was found at St. Katherine's Monastery in the…

The different colors of the map show different areas of sovereignty in modern Israel and Palestine. The light tan color is the modern State of Israel within the borders recognized by the international community in 1948-9. Israel shares a border with…

The earliest writing was not on paper, but on clay tablets. Instead of a pen, scribes used an instrument called a stylus that was triangular in cross-section. They would press the tip of the stylus into the clay to make the triangular portions of the…

This relief map shows the southern coastal plain from Jerusalem (in the east) to the coast (in the west), and from Joppa (the area of modern Tel Aviv - in the north) down to Gaza (in the south). In the period preceding the Israelite monarchies, this…

The Sinai Peninsula is nowadays part of the modern State of Egypt. The Gulf of Suez, on the left, divides it from the rest of Egypt. The Gulf of Aqaba, on the right, separates it from Saudi Arabia. The southernmost tip of Israel is at the…

The Sinai Desert is bounded by the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba. The region names on this map (Moab, Edom, Midian, Goshen, and Egypt), as well as the names and locations of the cities, are those of the Biblical period (Bronze and Iron Ages).…

This photo of the northern Sinai Desert shows the geography, topography, and sparse vegetation that is characteristic of southern Israel/Palestine and the area to its south. Much of its topography is created by sand dunes that are created around…

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

This figurine, modeled in unbaked clay, has the form of a kneeling prisoner with his arms tied behind him at the elbows. The writing is hieratic, a script much like Egyptian hieroglyphics; the inscription contains the names of enemies. After it was…

This theater is an example of both a new custom and a new architectural form brought eastward by the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Romans. Theater was a Greek invention, but many (if not most) of the Hellenistic 'influences' came to…

This monumental stairway is all that still exists of the monumental temple that King Herod the Great (37-4 BCE) erected and dedicated to the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus. The temple's foundations were laid directly over the top of the palaces of the…

This building is a mausoleum, i.e. a monumental burial structure, from the 2nd-3rd century CE. Bodies were placed inside the building in sarcophagi (lidded coffins carved out of limestone). Mausolea are extremely rare in Roman Palestine. The two…

This aerial photograph shows the Roman-style forum and adjoining basilica at Sebaste, which is located in the central part of the Central Hill. Herod built this town around 30 BCE in honor of Caesar Augustus (Sebastos is Greek for the Latin word…

This round stone tower dates to the Early Hellenistic period and was part of the defenses of the city of Samaria, which is located in the central and northern parts of the Central Hill. It is possible that this tower is evidence of the Greek…

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 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…

Caesar Augustus, arguably the first Emperor of Rome (scholars disagree over whether to call Julius Caesar the first "Emperor"), was born Gaius Octavius (he took the name "Augustus" after he became the Caesar of Rome). He was adopted as a son by…

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

This photograph shows in the inside relief of 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 capture and…

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…

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War lasted until a ceasefire agreement was signed in 1949 on the island of Rhodes. The Arabs lost about 20% of the land that they were originally allotted in the UN Partition Plan, and even the land that they received here was…

The Rosetta Stone contains an inscription written in three scripts (Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek) and allowed the decipherment of hieroglyphs and Demotic. It was found by Napoleon's army in 1799 in the city of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile…

Rahat (Arabic for “desert dwellers”) is a well-known Bedouin city, home to people of mostly semi-nomadic Arab descent. The city is north of Be’er Sheva, in the northern Negev, between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It holds about 60,000 people the…

The jars in this picture are the same type of jar inside of which the scrolls from Cave 1 were found. Its unusual shape suggests that it may have been made specifically for storing scrolls. The same sort of pottery, as well as a potter's kiln, were…

This photograph shows the outside of Cave 1, which, according to the common story, is what the two Bedouin shepherd boys saw and threw a rock into, hoping to find a lost goat. Instead, they heard the crash of broken pottery and found the first of the…

This photograph shows the inside of Cave 1, the first of 11 Judaean Desert caves that were found to contain the Dead Sea Scrolls. Seven intact scrolls came from this cave, including the two oldest copies of the book of Isaiah (they date to the late…

This photograph shows what the limestone cliffs in the region around Qumran look like, which makes it easier to understand how the Dead Sea Scrolls could have been hidden for nearly 2,000 years without being discovered. Cave 1 is in the upper left of…

This aerial photograph shows the settlement of Qumran, which is located in the Judaean Desert, which is probably where a group of people known as the Essenes lived between ca. 150 BCE and 72/73 CE. Most scholars think that the people who lived here…

This photograph shows the marl terraces of Qumran, upon which the ancient settlement was built. The Qumran Caves 4 and 5 are pictured near the center of the image. The wadi (dry riverbed) flows with water after fresh rains. The Dead Sea is visible in…

This photograph of the Qumran settlement, taken from a nearby cave, shows the marl terrace where caves 4 and 5 were found, the settlement, and the Dead Sea in the background.

This artist's rendition of a cult structure at Horvat Qitmit in the eastern Negev Desert has been identified as being Edomite, and as dating to the 7th-6th centuries BCE, on the basis of its pottery. In addition to the pottery, many fragments of clay…

Shown here is a potter working from a shop in the southern part of the Central Hill, spinning a wheel to shape clay into a pot. Behind him, one can see finished examples before they are fired in a kiln to remove moisture, hardening the clay into…

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 map shows the eastern coastal cities of ancient Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) and its natural resources. These ancient cities were loosely connected and politically independent, but they shared a common Canaanite culture. During the Iron Age…

This map shows the extent of the Persian Empire in 500 BCE. With a capital in Persepolis (down and to the right of the center of the map), they expanded their borders all the way into India in the east and to Egypt, North Africa, and Macedonia in the…

This maps shows the Persian divisions (also known as provinces, or pahva in Persian) of Israel/Palestine: Samaria, Judah, Idumaea, Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

Shepherds and flocks of sheep, as pictured here, are frequent themes in the Hebrew Bible – David, who’s native town was Bethlehem was a Shepherd. Goats, sheep, and shepherds also comprise the socio-economic context in some Gospel stories.

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 expansion of the Hasmonaean kingdom in the period between 160 and 76 BCE. The capital of the kingdom was always in Judaea, colored light blue. The Hasmonaean ruler Jonathan (160-142 BCE) added the yellow portions; his brother Simon…

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 12 inch-high figurine depicts a female figure seated on a stool and holding a milk churn on her head. The milk churn is a miniature replica of ceramic churns known from this period. It was found together with several other apparently ritual…

These hills are part of the northern Central Hill of Palestine. This view shows the valley of Liban, which is in the region that was Samaria in antiquity, and the modern village of Sawiya (on the far hill). The modern road follows the ancient route…