Browse Items (24 total)

The main source of the Jordan River is located near Banias (Caesarea Philippi), 1,312 feet above sea level. It drops down into the Huleh Valley and then down to the Sea of Galilee and from there down to the Dead Sea (1,300 feet below sea level). This…

Tiberias was founded by Herod Antipas in 20 CE and has been continuously occupied since then. It is located on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. At the top of the picture one sees the modern city of Tiberias which sits on the ruins of the Arab…

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 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 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 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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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

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…

The ancient site of Yiftael, in Lower Galilee, has one of the best preserved Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age I (3150-2850) villages in Galilee. This photograph shows the foundations of the round or elliptical houses that comprised a room that was…