This map shows the compromise plan drawn by a series of United Nations committees to divide the land between its Jewish and Arab residents. Jerusalem (in white, in the middle of the map) was meant to become an international zone under UN administration. The plan was accepted by Jewish leaders, and voted as the borders of the new State of Israel in 1948, but it was rejected by Arab leaders. This disparity led to the declaration of war in 1948.
A tel (sometimes spelled 'tell'), shown in this picture, is a mound holding ancient ruins. Most towns and cities in ancient times were built on the top of a hill because this location offered a defensive advantage. When all or part of a city was destroyed, builders usually found it easier to fill in and level the city they destroyed (rather than remove the debris), resulting in an increasingly higher mound over hundreds or thousands of years. Archaeologists can excavate through the different layers of destroyed cities that make the tel and gain much information about the specific site and the different periods of history in general.
Akko/Acre: aerial view of the fortifications
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 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 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 holding court in Acco.
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.
Amman: Model of a Shrine and 'Pillar Astarte' Figurines
This shrine model and pillar figurines were not actually found together, but have been photographed together because they are cult objects from the end of the Israelite period (8th-7th centuries BCE). The shrine model was made from an inverted water jug, one side of which was sliced off, after which the two pillars with double volutes were applied. The dove with spread wings (above the doorway) and the three figurines were closely associated with the cult of Astarte.
Israel is located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, between the Sinai Peninsula, the Arabian Peninsula, and Syria. Other important regions include Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor, which make up the northern edge of the Mediterranean, and the inland region of Mesopotamia, which is bounded by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Mesopotamia and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean constitute the 'Fertile Crescent' around the arid desert that makes up most of the Arabian Peninsula. To the south of the Mediterranean (the bottom left of the picture) is the region of North Africa, the territory of modern countries such as Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria.
This photograph shows the remains of a Tobiad palace at Araq el-Amir in modern Jordan (east of the Jordan River). The Tobiads were a Jewish ruling family in the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries BCE who, according to the books of 2 Maccabees and Josephus, were philhellenes (that is, they embraced Hellenism. Philhellene comes from the words philos [love of] and Hellene [Greece]). The book of 1 Maccabees tells us that there were Jews in this period who so embraced Hellenism that they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem (where young men would exercise in the nude) and transformed Jerusalem into a Greek polis called Antioch In Jerusalem. The Tobiad palatial residence at Araq el-Amir seems to support these accounts, as it is a Jewish residence yet is clearly Hellenistic in style. In addition, carved representations of animals, which are believed by many scholars to have been prohibited by Jewish law in this period, were found here. You can see the carved animals at the front of the picture, on the top surviving panel, to the left and right of the entrance (marked by the two stand-alone columns).
This miniature clay chair with breasts and head stands 7 inches high and dates to the 12th century BCE. So many fragments of other chair figures such as this were uncovered at Ashdod that they came to be called 'Ashdod' figures. They were subsequently found at other sites identified as Phoenician. The concept of the throne-seat and the stylized shape of the head is similar to late Mycenaean representations of a seated female deity found on the Greek mainland, Rhodes, and Cyprus.
This incense stand from 10th BCE Philistine Ashdod shows 5 musicians playing double flutes, cymbals, and a lyre. Incense was placed on top and hot coals were placed inside. The incense would burn and release a pleasant smell.
This distinctive type of painted pottery has been found at sites along the southern coast of Palestine from the 12th and 11th centuries BCE, which has led scholars to conclude that this is 'Philistine pottery,' as the Philistines were known to have lived in the area in this period. The decoration seems to be clearly derived from late Mycenaean painted pottery (i.e., painted pottery from Mycenae), which was produced in Greece in this period, and the shapes of the vessels seem to be a mixture of Mycenaean and Canaanite shapes. These similarities have led many scholars to conclude that the Philistines either originated in the Aegean or appropriated Mycenaean forms and styles through interaction with them.
This bronze figurine of Osiris (one of the two traditional Egyptian gods, the other being Isis) was found at Ashkelon and dates to the 4th century BCE. Both Isis and Osiris had become very popular throughout the Mediterranean, and although this figurine depicts Osiris in the traditional Egyptian attire and stance, it was found in the bronzesmith's shop and so is known to have been cast at Ashkelon.
This map shows the ancient Near East and the expansion of the Assyrian kingdom. The core of the Assyrian kingdom was in Assyria (in the upper right portion of the red area), and the red area depicts the kingdom's expansion under Shalmaneser III (859-824 BCE). The orange areas, which include the land of Israel/Palestine, were conquered by Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BCE), the green areas (which include the Nile Delta) were conquered by Esarhaddon (681-699 BCE), and the blue area (the rest of Egypt) was conquered by Asshurbanipal (685-627 BCE).
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.
This is a famous photograph of Theodor Herzl at the First World Jewish Congress, looking over the Rhine in Basel, Switzerland. He was born in Hungary and became the founding leader of the Zionist movement. In 1895-1896, he wrote a seminal piece Der Judenstaat ("The Jewish State"); the English version was published in 1896 in London. He also founded Die Welt in 1898 as well as planned the Zionist Council, being elected its President in that same year. Over the next six years he advanced the cause of the Jewish people. He died in 1904.
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 valley at the northern end of the Central Hill.
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 that are the hills and peaks of Upper Galilee (in the background).
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 Galilee (in the background).
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 gathered. The yellow circle is the Crusader city of Tiberias which had fallen to Saladin and was a gathering point for Saladin's army. The green circle is around springs of Sepphoris, where the Crusaders rested the night before the march toward the battle began.
Modern Be’er Sheva is in southern Israel, where the climate is arid. It is the largest city in the Negev, and home to many global Jewish cultural traditions, represented especially by Sephardic (Spanish), Mizrahi (Egyptian, Iraqi), as well as Jews of Indian decent. Today, Be’er Sheva is a flourishing city with a top university and prosperous soccer team. The archaeological evidence for Be’er Sheva dates back to the Iron Age, where it appears to have been the first planned town in the Negev. It was also one of the earliest sites to develop an elaborate man-made water system.
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 of burden. At the right the altar blazes up, while Abraham (whose name appears in Hebrew above and to the left of his head) holds the knife in his right hand and Isaac (also labeled in Hebrew) in his left hand. In the center a ram stands tethered to a bush. The Hebrew above its head reads, 'And behold, a ram' (Genesis 22:13). Above the bush the hand of the angel of the Lord emerges from a cloud and the command 'Do not send forth [your hand]' (Genesis 22:12) appears below the hand. Underneath the main panel, between the lion and the ram, is a dual language inscription, in Greek and Aramaic. The first commemorates the artists who made the inscription and the second refers to the donations made toward its costs. The Aramaic inscription dates the event to the days of 'King Justin.' Two emperors by that name reigned in the sixth century.
During the crusader period (1095–1291 CE) several European style castles were built in the land of Israel. These are located in geographically strategic locations. The Belvoir Castle, for example, was built by the Knights Hospitaller (a medieval Catholic military order) in northern Israel on a bluff overlooking the Jordan River valley, in eastern, lower Galilee. The castle guarded one of the roads leading to the Crusader “Kingdom of Jerusalem” to the south. The architecture of such castles is striking in the Middle East, because they include European style moats, useful where water was abundant, but an oddity in arid regions. The Belvoir Castle was built with two protective walls in concentric squares. After Saladin’s remarkable victory at the Horns of Hattin (1187 CE), the castle was besieged and fell to Arab rulers.
This photograph of an archway in the Belvoir castle shows architecture typical of the Crusader period - in this case, pointed arches.
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 the 2nd century BCE it was also known as Nyssa, after the nurse of the god Dionysus, as legend says that she was buried here. The city fell into Jewish hands when it was conquered by the Hasmonaean king John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE) but fell to Rome in 63 BCE. Josephus mentions Scythopolis as the capital of the Decapolis (the league of 10 cities). In this picture you can see the theater, which seated 8,000, the long colonnaded main street, and other public buildings.
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 representing the well-being of the city.
This photograph shows the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, originally commissioned in the 4th century CE by the emperor Constantine and built under the supervision of his mother Helen over a cave that they identified as the site of the birth of Jesus. The current building dates to the days of the emperor Justinian in the 6th century CE. The front of the church is marked by a large apse (to the right of the building with the red roof); the church itself has a shape of a cross. The big open square in front of the church (with all of the cars) is called Manger Square and is the place where people from all over the world gather to hear the mass on Christmas Eve.
This map shows the extent of the British Mandate of Palestine, which includes Palestine and Transjordan. Note that Syria was a French mandated territory after WWI.
This map was published by the Palestine Arab Refugee office and represents developments from 1945–1949. The areas in red show Jewish land owned in March of 1945. The black lines show the proposed 1947 UN Partition Plan (“J” for Jewish State, and “A” for Arab State). The city of Jerusalem would become an international zone ("IZ"). The red-dotted line shows the Rhodes Armistice boundary after the Arab-Israeli Civil War in 1949.
This aerial view of the ancient harbor of Caesarea Maritima, looking from the Mediterranean sea toward the northeast, gives a feel of what the Coastal Plains are like. They are relatively flat and fertile from the rain runoff. The ports and cities that dot the coastline thrived on maritime trade and made control of the Coastal Plain strategically important. The city in this picture was built by Herod the Great in the 1st century BCE. Protruding from the coast into the sea is an artificial wave breaker that Herod's engineers devised to allow the ships to set anchor. On the coast to the right are the ancient ruins of the city of Caesarea.
This is a south-north aerial view of the ancient port-city Caesarea Maritima, one of King Herod’s most extravagant building projects (22-10 BCE). It was built in honor of Caesar Augustus, and became the capital of Roman Judaea around 6 CE. The eastern Mediterranean lacks a natural harbor, so Herod imported massive stones and built a wave breaker (part of which can be seen protruding from the beach in the upper third of the picture) which supported an artificial enclosed port. This port dramatically increased the revenue flowing into Herod’s kingdom and rivaled the famous ports of Alexandria and Athens. Herod also made Caesarea the epicenter of Greco-Roman culture in Israel. At the bottom of the image, one can see the remains of the ancient theater (circular structure). Just to the left, jutting out into the ocean, was Herod’s palace. A race track follows the coast north, and leads up to the location where a temple to Augustus once stood. This overlooked the main harbor. At the top of the image, one can see the end of the aqueduct that brought fresh water from a spring near the base of Mount Carmel, which was 7 miles away, a remarkable feat of engineering.
This photograph shows one of the city streets in Caesarea, which was built by King Herod as a port city on the Mediterranean cost. Two seated statues can be seen facing each other across the street. When Herod's son Archaeleus was deposed in 6 CE, the Roman procurator assigned to govern the area made his residence here, and Judaea was administered from this lavish seaside city.
This photograph shows the aqueduct that fed the city of Caesarea Maritima, a port city (notice the waves of the Mediterranean on the left) that King Herod the Great built nearly from scratch between 25-13 BCE. The monumental aqueduct stretches north along the coast for 6.5 miles to a spring in the Mount Carmel range, which is barely visible in the haze at the top right of the photo. Beyond that point a tunnel was cut through the mountain for another 6 miles to tap additional fresh water supplies for Caesarea's large population.
This aerial photograph of the southern portion of the city of Caesarea Maritima shows the huge theater that looks out toward the ocean and the setting sun. The land that juts out into the ocean at the lower left corner of the photo is the so-called 'Promontory Palace,' also built by King Herod the Great. The area of green to the left of the palace, between the modern road and the ocean, has been excavated since this photograph was taken, revealing a long colonnaded street and a hippodrome for chariot races.
This aerial photograph shows one of the great engineering feats of antiquity: the enclosed harbor at Caesarea Maritima. The coast of Israel/Palestine has few good natural harbors, so King Herod built one using the state-of-the-art technology of cement that would cure underwater to build one of the two or three largest harbors in the Mediterranean. (The harbor itself included the dark spots visible under the water that extend out of the photo to the left.) Behind and on both sides of the harbor Herod built a massive city that included a temple to Caesar Augustus on the high spot overlooking the harbor.
This aerial view of the area just south of the harbor at Caesarea Maritima shows the Roman theater (approx. 4,000 seats in its final stage) and the remains of the Promontory Palace (in the lower left corner of the photo), both built in the 1st century BCE. On the right are some of the modern buildings of the town of Sdot Yam.
This is a photograph of Anwar Sadat, the third President of Egypt. He was the first Arab leader to visit Israel in 1977 and he signed a peace treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1979, following the Camp David Accords. He was assassinated by an Egyptian Army lieutenant in 1981.
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.
Cairo: Winston Churchill and Emir Abdulla
This photograph shows Winston Churchill (second from right), who was at that time the British Colonial Secretary, meeting with Emir Abdullah of Transjordan (fourth from right) and Sir Herbert Samuel (between them), who was the High Commissioner of Palestine. They met in Cairo in 1921 to decide what to do with the Middle East. One of the decisions made was to give a large chunk of British-controlled territory to King Feisal of Iraq and another to the Hashemite family of Jordan.
This image shows an ancient manuscript with Hebrew writing from the 2nd century CE. This document, along with others, were found in the “Cave of Letters,” located in Nahal Hever, a canyon near the Dead Sea. In total, about 14 letters were sent from Simeon Bar Kokhba, a messianic leader of the Jewish rebels against Rome, to his commanders stationed north at Ein Gedi. They demanded the confiscation of grain from nearby farmers and threatened to punish anyone who did not obey. Another 35 documents belong to the “archive of Babatha,” a prominent Jewish woman who owned land and slaves. This all took place during the Second Jewish War with Rome—known as the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE)—when Jewish fighters hid these documents in caves. They hoped to retrieve them later. The letters comprise military correspondences, real estate contracts, legal records, and religious texts. They remained buried for almost 2000 years until they were discovered in the 1950s.
This picture shows a portion of the Central Hill rising up from the Seashore plaines, looking east. Over the Hill is the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. The Central Hill is a rectangular topographic feature that runs north and south through central Israel. It comprises a series of interconnected hills, and roughly corresponds to the area known as the West Bank. At the front of the picture are the archaeological remains of the Iron Age town Beit Shemesh, located in a region called the Shefelah, a narrow area of lowland foothills between the Central Hill and the Seashore plains.
Central Hill and Jordan Valley: Relief Map
This relief map shows the Coastal Plain, Central Hill, and Jordan Valley in the central part of the country. Jerusalem is just off the map to the south, and Megiddo, on the edge of Galilee, is at the northern edge. In the period before the Israelite Monarchies, the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites lived on the other side of the Jordan Valley (past Succoth and Pehel), and the Philistines inhabited the coastal plain (labeled here as the 'Sharon Plain').
This landscape is typical of many parts of the Central Hill. To the right one can trace the valley that descends from the peak of the central hills and runs west toward the Mediterranean. The steep slopes on the left are man-made terracing (known in Arabic as terrasa, steps) necessary for agriculture; the rainfall on the western slope of the Central Hill provides water.
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 view of the fields below the Central Hill shows the lush nature of the Coastal Plain between Tel Aviv and Caesarea Maritima. The blue line in the background is the Mediterranean.
Crusader holdings after the Battle of Hattin: Map
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 yellow star) at its center. The island at the top right is Cyprus, itself a Crusader stronghold.
The Dead Sea, which is the lowest place on earth (1,388 feet below sea level), received its name from the fact that its high salinity precludes almost anything from living in it. Water flows into it from various sources, including the Jordan River, and cannot flow out. As a result the water absorbs many minerals from the ground before it evaporates, leaving salt and mineral formations behind.
This image looks east over the Dead Sea towards the Jordanian hills. The Dead Sea is 31 miles long and 9 miles wide. It is situated along the Syrian-African Rift, and is the lowest place on earth, about 1,400 feet below sea level. The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan river at its northern end, but the high banks at the southern end cordon off the water so that it cannot flow out. The fresh water mixes with the sediments of the ground resulting in the extreme salinity of the water, estimated to be over 9 times saltier than the ocean. Fish and plant life is thus impossible. The Dead Sea, however, is rich in mineral resources, such as potash, salt, and fertilizers, which are used for cosmetic products that are exported throughout the world.
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.
This photograph shows some common every-day pottery from the Early Bronze Age (3,300-2,000 BCE). Because archaeologists find more pottery sherds than anything else in an excavation, it is the main source of information for dating the architecture of an ancient building. It works like this: the shapes of ceramic vessels are known to have changed over time and to have been different in different regions. As a result, the shape and fabric (i.e., clay used) of a vessel fragment can tell an archaeologist when it was made and, by extension, when the soil in which it was found was deposited. The tower-shaped vessel in this photograph is an incense burner. Coal would be put inside and it would heat the incense that was put on top, spreading a pleasant aroma.