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 the background.
The Hellenistic Kingdoms after 198 BCE: Map
This map shows the divisions of the Hellenistic kingdoms after the Battle of Paneas in 198 BCE. After this point, the land of Israel/Palestine was controlled by the Seleucids. The Ptolemiac Kingdom continued to occupy Egypt and North Africa.
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.
Samaria Sabaste: Hellenistic Round Tower
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 occupation of the city at the time of Alexander the Great, as this style of tower had been used in Greece in the previous century and it became increasingly popular in later periods.
This photograph shows the back wall of the Sidonian Tomb at Maresha, called the 'Sidonian' Tomb because of an inscription designates the tomb's deceased as members of a Sidonian colony living at Maresha. Each of the openings on the walls is a 'loculus,' which is where the bodies of the deceased were placed. There were 41 loculi in total.
This map shows the extent of Alexander the Great's conquests on the eve of his death in 323 BCE. His empire stretched from Macedonia and Northern Greece in the west to the border of India in the east, and from the Black Sea in the north to Egypt in the south.
This detail photograph is from the 'Sidonian Tomb' at Maresha, so called because of an inscription that says that the deceased were members of a Sidonian colony at Maresha. In this photograph we see a painting of a horse-mounted hunter accompanied by a hunting dog spearing a leopard. The Greek inscription above the rider reads 'the white horse of the rider,' and the Greek word above the leopard says 'pardalos,' a variant of the Greek word for the animal ('pardalis').
Persian Divisions of Israel/Palestine: Map
This maps shows the Persian divisions (also known as provinces, or pahva in Persian) of Israel/Palestine: Samaria, Judah, Idumaea, Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
After the decree of the Persian King Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem from Babylon (ca. 538 BCE), they began to rebuild the city. Seen here are a few of the remains of that building project, which was executed over the following 200 years. The square-cornered tower at the upper left (below Nos. 1 and 2) were erected over the rubble of the 7th century BCE houses. The stepped structure immediately north of the tower (No. 3) goes back to early Israelite times, but its upper portion was reused as a post-Exilic fortification and was supplemented by additional new wall elements farther north (to the right of No. 3).
This photograph shows the entrance stairs leading down into the Sidonian Tomb at Maresha, so called because of an inscription that says that the deceased who were buried here were members of a Sidonian community in Maresha. The paintings on the walls show a hunting scene.
This aerial photograph looking north at Mt. Gerizim, which is located in the northern part of the Central Hill, shows the remains of the Samaritan Temple. The city of Shechem sat in the valley below (a portion of which can be seen on the right and side). Shechem's name was changed to Neapolis ('New City') in the late 1st century CE, and that name is still preserved in the modern Arabic name of the city, Nablus.
The first of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by Bedouin in 1947 in the Judaean Desert, who took them to an antiquities dealer in Bethlehem named Kando. Kando took four of the scrolls to St. Mark's Monastery in the Old City of Jerusalem, where he showed them to the spiritual leader of the Jacobite Syrian Christians in Jerusalem, Metropolitan (Archbishop) Mar Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, who is the man in this picture. Metropolitan Samuel purchased the scrolls from Kando for about $97.
This detail photograph is from the 'Sidonian Tomb,' so called because of an inscription that says that the deceased were members of a Sidonian colony living at Maresha. In this photograph we see paintings of animals from Egypt, along with their Greek names: a lynx (left), a porcupine (center), and perhaps a rhinoceros (right).
This map shows the regional divisions (eparchies) after the Battle of Paneas (198 BCE), when the Seleucids seized control of Israel/Palestine: Phoenicia, Samaria, Paralia, Idumaea, and Galaaditis.
This photograph shows one of the main streets of the 3rd century BCE city of Dor. This phase of the city was built under King Ptolemy II (285-246 BCE) on a Hippodamian plan (i.e., a checkerboard pattern of city blocks) and had an advanced sewage system (note the drain cutting across the street at an angle in the center of the picture) and was supplied by an aqueduct. Shops opened into the street on both sides, and apartments would have stood above the shops.
These two toy-sized ceramic horses with riders are known from the Persian period. They are usually found in a favissa (a repository at a shrine used for objects that had gained sanctity by use in cult ritual and could not, therefore, be returned to a non-sacred setting).
This map shows the regional divisions (hyparchies) in the Ptolemaic Period (i.e., 312-198 BCE): Phoenicia, Galilee, Samaria, Judaea, Perea, Ammonitis, Moabitis, and Idumaea.
When the Persian king Cyrus II (557-529 BCE) conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, he had this ten-inch-long clay barrel made and inscribed in the Babylonian language. In the text he says that his victory was made possibly by support of Marduk, the god of Babylon, and he accuses Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, of neglecting the gods of Babylon and oppressing its people. According to the cylinder, Marduk scoured the lands for a righteous ruler and chose Cyrus because of his good deeds and just heart. Scholars have long noted parallels between this text and Isaiah 40-55, a section of the Bible that was composed at about the same time, in which the biblical prophet Isaiah announces the fall of Babylon (though he says that it is because Yahweh, not Marduk, who chose Cyrus). Cyrus' acceptance and reinstitution of the local religion of Babylon presaged Persian imperial policy that allowed the Jews to return from exile and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. See also Ezra 1:2-4; 6:1-5 and 2 Chronicles 36:23.
All three of these vessels can be dated to the late 6th or early 5th century BCE, during the first decades of Persian control of Palestine. However, pottery forms do not change simply because the political control does. As a result, these forms look very much like those from the Iron II period. That said, pottery forms do change over time, so the lamp in this photograph (in the center) is flatter, wider, and thinner-walled than those found 100 years earlier (in the Iron II period), and the juglet on the left is somewhat trimmer in profile than its Iron II counterparts.
The Elephantine Papyri are correspondences of a Jewish military garrison who occupied an island in the Nile River on ancient Egypt's southern border. They had a temple in which the god of Israel was worshiped under the name Yhwh ('Yahu'), and in this letter a man named Hananiah writes to the Elephantine Jews to observe the Passover. Hananiah cites the authority of word sent from Darius himself to Arsames, the satrap of Egypt, that the Jewish festivals were to be celebrated on their traditional dates. It is possible that Hananiah was the brother of the Nehemiah that is known from the Bible (see, e.g., Neh. 7:2). The letter was written on both sides of the papyrus (customary for letters, as opposed to contracts, which were only written on one side).
Money was invented in the Persian Period, and this particular coin bears the official name of the district in which the Jews lived: 'Yehud' (spelled out by the three letters to the right of the bird). The script is ancient Hebrew and the name is the Persian version of the biblical name Judah.
This aerial photograph of Jerusalem, looking north, shows the hilly character of the area. The Old City, including the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, can be seen in the center of the picture, and the skyscrapers of the New City are in the background. In the middle of the picture a spur of a hill descends from the Old City toward the intersection of the shadows that are created by the hill on which the Old City sits. The Jehoshaphat Valley sits in the shadow that curves around the Old City to the right, while the Hinnom Valley curves around to the left side of the Old City (the valley itself is not clearly visible because of the other hill in the foreground). These two valleys intersect at the bottom of the spurand become the Kidron Valley, which then runs south all the way to the Dead Sea. The City of David sits on the spur itself, between the Jehoshaphat and Hinnom valleys and below the Old City. To the right of the Jehoshaphat Valley is the Mount of Olives with village of Siloam on its slopes. At the top right of the photo you can see the water tower of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus.
Tel Jemmeh: Persian Period Imported Greek Vase
This beautiful urn was made by a well known Greek potter and vase painter around 450 BCE. It was imported to Judah and found in the ruins of a Persian grain storage center at Tel Jemmeh. The reason that an elegant urn from Greece ended up in Judah is unknown, but likely has something to do with the fact that the Persians controlled everything east of the Aegean by this time.
This photograph shows modern Samaritans, one of whom is holding a Torah scroll, on Mt. Gerizim. The Samaritans still practice their religion in much the same way that ancient Jews practiced their religion prior to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. They slaughter lambs at Passover and burn parts of the sacrifice on a fire much as happened in the Jerusalem Temple courts. And the Samaritans of today still hold their religious festivals on Mt. Gerizim, near the archaeological ruins of their ancient Temple.
These three figurines of pregnant women wearing Egyptian wigs and holding one hand on their stomachs are typical of figurines found at other Phoenician sites in Lebanon, Cyprus, and Israel in the Persian period. Scholars usually assume that they were votive offerings to a goddess. Some similar figurines from a 4th century BCE shipwreck at Shave Zion, on the northern coast of Israel, bore the symbol of the Phoenician goddess Tanit.
This aerial photograph shows the City of David and the Temple Mount above it. Notice the ridge upon which the City of David was built (to the right of the road running from the upper center to the bottom of the photograph). The place of the Temple Mount was outside of the City of David until the time of Solomon. As the highest point in the area it became the location for David's 'high place' altar and Solomon's temple.
This finely worked sculpture of a bearded man wearing a sort of a head cover is typical of the high-quality Hellenistic finds from the port city of Dor.
This view of the eastern slope of the City of David shows the steps leading down to the Gihon Spring (at the bottom of the photo, in the triangular shadow beneath the double window), 8th-7th century BCE walls and a Jebusite wall (immediately below the modern terrace walls that are to the right of the diagonal path), a tower in the eastern wall of the city that was built in the time of Nehemiah (at the crest of the hill, above the terrace walls, casting a triangular shadow), and the modern walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, which were built in the 16th century CE (at the top of the photograph).
Jerusalem: Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock
This photograph of the Temple Mount was taken from its southeast corner (i.e., it is looking northwest). The Temple Mount is visible in the center of the photograph, as is the Al Aqsa Mosque (on the left) and both the Old City and New City of Jerusalem (in the background). The ruins at the bottom left of the photograph are archaeological remains from the Crusader period.
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 west.
Jerusalem: map of the period between the Jebusites and Hezekiah
This map shows the borders of city of Jerusalem from the time of the Jebusites, the settlers of the city prior to the 10th century BCE, to the time of the Judaean king Hezekiah (686 BCE). The current Old City walls (built in the 16th century CE) and the Temple Mount complex (built by Herod the Great between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE) are in red. The Canaanite, Jebusite, and Davidic city (i.e., the city prior to the time of king Solomon) is outlined in purple; the Solomonic expansion is outlined in green; and the 8th century BCE expansion of the city is in yellow. Water systems (e.g., the Siloam Tunnel, the Pool of Siloam, and the Gihon Spring) are in blue.
This bone pendant is a typical depiction of the god Bes, an Egyptian god who protected pregnant women. It would have been the central ornament on a necklace.
Jerusalem: City of David - the Stepped Structure
The 50-foot-high stepped structure on the right in this photo was probably built in the pre-Davidic Jebusite period (i.e., prior to the 10th century BCE). The square-cornered tower immediately beyond the stepped structure was part of the east wall of the city in the Second Temple period and the walls and steps in the lower left of the photo belong to a house from the 8th or 7th centuries BCE.
In this aerial view of the Old City of Jerusalem, which is looking east toward the Mount of Olives and Mount Scopus and the Judaean Desert beyond them, the outline of the Old City walls is clearly visible, as is the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock (in the center of the photo). The Tyropoeon Valley, which runs through the middle of the Old City, is visible as a shadow that runs between the Temple Mount and Mt. Zion at the bottom of the photograph.
This photograph shows the excavation of the so-called 'sloping tunnel' that led from the entrance to the Warren's Shaft complex to the vertical shaft. It was clearly carved to allow many people to walk through it simultaneously.
In this view of the Temple Mount, looking west, one can clearly see the Dome of the Chain (between the five arches and the Dome of the Rock), and the Al Aqsa Mosque (the large building complex on the left). The Dome of the Chain is one of the oldest structures on top of the Temple Mount and was used as a prayer house.
This topographical map of Jerusalem shows the present Old City of Jerusalem in dark blue (the walls of which were built by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century CE) and the Temple Mount in the southeastern corner of the Old City. The City of David is outlined in light blue, at the south (and lower) end of the Hill of Ophel. During Solomon's reign the city was expanded northward (up the hill), and the Temple was built at the highest point on the hill (the red square within Solomon's city).
This photograph of the Old City of Jerusalem shows the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock in the background and the Western Wall Plaza in the center of the picture. The Western Wall (also called the Wailing Wall) is the western side of the Temple Mount. Because the Temple Mount complex is sacred to Muslims, and religious Jews do not want to inadvertently walk on the space where the (Jewish) Holy of Holies was located in the Second Temple period, the Western Wall Plaza became Judaism's most holy site and place of prayer.
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. The grey dome at the bottom of the photograph is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Jerusalem: area and population through the ages
This slide, fairly self-explanatory, shows the size and population of Jerusalem between 1,000 BCE and 565 CE. One can see the gradual rise in the city's population and geographical scope, as well as the topographical trajectory of its development: First from the southeast corner (next to the water), then up the slope to the north, then to the hills to the west, and from there again to the north.
This aerial view of the Temple Mount, 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 (this is the southern end of the Temple Mount complex). The Old City wall is visible at the bottom of the photograph. Note the flat enormous stone slabs that make up the Temple Mount platform. These were hewn by King Herod the Great and his engineers.
The photographed image (on the right) and line drawing (on the left) are of one of two Ketef Hinnom amulets. It is a small (1.0 x 3.75 inches), thin sheet of silver on which an inscription was lightly inscribed. It is important because they date to ca. 600 BCE and the inscription preserves part of the Priestly Blessing that is known from the Bible (Numbers 6:24-26), which makes the two amulets the oldest evidence for a biblical text. The sheets were found rolled up and had possibly been worn around the neck (after a string was passed through the center of the roll). They were found in a tomb across the Hinnom Valley from the southwestern corner of the Old City of Jerusalem.
This photograph shows the exit of the Siloam Tunnel. The small pool in the foreground was, up until 2004, thought to be the Pool of Siloam. However, in that year a larger, lower pool that dates to the Second Temple Period was found just below this one.
Jerusalem: City of David - expansion in the 9th-7th centuries BCE
This map shows the City of David, the City of Solomon (north/up the hill), and the expansion of the city to the west, which occurred between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE. It also shows the path of the Siloam Tunnel from the Spring of the Gihon outside the city walls to the pool of Siloam within the city. Topographically one can see how the two tributaries of the Kidron valley embrace the city from the east and south, and as such define its borders.
This photograph shows the inside of the Siloam Tunnel at the 'place of the join' - that is, midway through the tunnel's length, where the Siloam Tunnel Inscription says that two teams, each cutting from opposite ends, met. The pick marks on the walls (which give the walls their rough appearance in this photograph) go in opposite directions in the two halves of the tunnel and confirm the inscription's account.
This cross-section drawing shows the shaft by which inhabitants of Jerusalem obtained water from the Gihon Spring. In the drawing, 7 is the Gihon Spring, 8 is the city wall, and 1 is the entrance into the tunnel system from inside the city. Water carriers would enter at 1, descend down some steps (2), walk down a sloping tunnel (3) to the main shaft (9), where they could drop buckets approximately 50 feet down to the water, which had flowed from the spring (7) through a tunnel (6). It is important to note that the Warren's Shaft tunnel complex predates the cutting of the Siloam Tunnel (also known as Hezekiah's Tunnel) in 701 BCE.
This six-sided prism of baked clay preserves the annals of Sennacherib, who was the king of Assyria from 704-681 BCE. It was written around 689 BCE in the Akkadian language (and cuneiform script). The text contains the records of Sennacherib's eight military campaigns, and includes a reference to the campaign against Hezekiah, king of Judah, in order to reclaim the tribute that he owed to Assyria. Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem and Judah is preserved in the biblical books of 2 Kings (18:13ff) and Isaiah (36:1ff). According to the Prism, Sennacherib's campaign against Hezekiah led to his submission; according to 2 Kings 19:8ff, the mission was without success.
This photograph shows the modern entrance to the Gihon Spring (the steps leading down in the background), from the inside of the tunnel. This prolific spring provided water for the inhabitants of Jerusalem in antiquity even in the driest summer months. It was accessed via Warren's Shaft in the early Israelite period and rerouted in 701 BCE when the Siloam Tunnel was cut.
This photograph shows the actual vertical shaft through which people would have lowered buckets from the so-called 'sloping shaft' into the water below. It is unknown when this shaft was created, or even if it was man-made or natural, but it was certainly used prior to 701 BCE when the Siloam Tunnel was cut.
The Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is an inscription that was written by Mesha, the king of Moab, in the 9th century BCE. In it he writes that he defeated Omri, the king of Israel. It is the earliest known inscriptional evidence of the name of the Israelite god (YHWH) and the most extensive description of Israel.