Browse Items (20 total)

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 aerial close-up of the northern outcropping of the mountaintop fortress of Masada shows the three-tiered Northern Palace that was built by Herod the Great, as well as storehouses and a bath house (at the top of the photograph). The Jewish…

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 synagogue within the fortress of Masada, which is located in the Judaean Desert (note the Dead Sea in the top right of the picture). At the end of the Jewish revolt against Rome in 70 CE, some of the rebels who were part of…

This aerial close-up of the northern outcropping of the mountaintop fortress of Masada shows the three-tiered Northern Palace that was built by King Herod the Great (37-4 BCE), as well as storehouses and a bath house (at the top of the photograph).…

These vessels are typical of those created in the Roman period. Glass bead jewelry is known to have been made as early as 3,000-2,000 BCE, core-formed glass vessels were made beginning around 1,500 BCE, and molded glass vessels are known from the…

The large stones visible in the foreground of this picture are catapult stones that were used in the Roman siege of the Judaean desert fortress of Masada (in 73 CE). They are obviously very large and very heavy, and were made by the Roman soldiers…

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…

The Romans are well known for having built stone-paved roads in order to speed communication and enable the army to move more efficiently. They built an extensive road network that connected the main cities of all of their provinces. This one led…

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 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…

There are a few monumental tombs outside and below the southeast corner of the Old City of Jerusalem, in the Jehoshaphat Valley. The one in this picture is known anachronistically as the Tomb of Absalom (Absalom was the biblical son of David who…

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…

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 fragment of a Greek inscription inscribed in stone is one of several large stone notices that were erected around the Temple precinct entrances in the Second Temple Period. A complete version of the same text was found in the 19th century, and…

The light colored, curved shape on the left in this photograph is the roof the Shrine of the Book, a building within the Israel Museum in Jerusalem that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls. The roof was designed to look like the lid of one of the jars inside…

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.