Browse Items (337 total)

This map of the eastern Mediterranean shows the extent of the now-small-sized Crusader state that was preserved after the Battle of Hattin (in 1187 CE). It was a small strip stretching from Acre to Sidon with the city of Tyre (represented by the…

This map represents the military movements in the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the 13th century CE, including the 7th Crusade of King Louis IX in 1248 CE from France to Egypt (red) and the move of the Mongols in the 13th century, emanating…

This photograph shows the Horns of Hattin (or Hill of Hattin), which is the large, flat hilltop in the top center of the photograph. It is an extinct volcano that, from the ground, looks like two horns. Recent archaeological research has revealed a…

This map shows the battle of Ein Galud (September 1260) between the Mamluks (yellow) and the Mongols (red arrow). The Mamluks came from Egypt and the Mongols from Syria. They met at the great plains near a spring called Ein Galud (green star) in a…

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 map highlights the distribution of forces during the Battle of Hattin. The red represents the Crusaders; the yellow represents the Muslim encirclement of their army. To the right is the Northwest tip of the Sea of Galilee and to the north of…

This page, from a book called Nihayat al-Sul, a Mamluk manual on horsemanship that was published in Cairo in the mid- to late-14th century, offers a visual depiction of Mamluk cavalrymen. Note their spears and light armor.

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 photo gives a good view of the bay of Acco/Acre, the only natural port site between Tyre and Gaza. In the past it was a central port in Palestine, including in the days of the Crusades. Today it is a modern Israeli/Arab city.

This aerial view of Acco, looking northwest, shows the Crusader fortification system, including the moat and thick walls. At the heart of the city you can see the Muslim complex of the Gazar Mosque. The port is in the background.

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 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 photograph shows Montfort Castle ('mountain castle' in Latin), which was built by the Teutonic Order (a German order patterned after the Knights Templar) in the early 13th century. It is located in western Galilee protecting one of the local…

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 of an archway in the Belvoir castle shows architecture typical of the Crusader period - in this case, pointed arches.

This map of Jerusalem during time of the Crusades highlights the 3 religious foci in the city: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the yellow circle) and the two additional crusader structures that were erected on Temple Mount: the crusaders converted…

This map shows the 3 political powers in the Mediterranean world on the eve of the Crusades: Catholic Europe (yellow); the Byzantine Empire (orange); and the Arab kingdoms of the Middle East and North Africa (red). The arrows represent the various…

This monastery in the Judaean Desert, initially called the Great Laura and later Mar Saba (after its founder, Sabas of Cappadocia), was built in 483 CE. It is the result of Byzantine-era hermetic monasticism: in 457 CE, at the age of 18, Mar Saba…

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 Nimrud's Castle, which sits on top of a steep hill in the northern Golan Heights, underneath Mt. Hermon. It guarded one of the roads from Tyre to Damascus. This slide looks southwest; in the background is the Huleh Valley and…

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…

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

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 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 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…

In this photograph of the Old City of Jerusalem after a winter snow, the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock are visible in the distance (to the east), as is the Mount of Olives in the background and the hills of the Judaean desert to the far right.…

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 plan shows what Jerusalem looked like after the Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE) ordered the establishment of a colony named Aelia Capitolina in 130-132 CE. Some scholars believe that a temple to Jupiter was erected on the site where the…

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…