Browse Items (337 total)
Jerusalem: Siloam Tunnel
This map shows the plan of the Siloam Tunnel (also known as Hezekiah's Tunnel), which was carved around 701 BCE to reroute the water of the Gihon Spring so that it was accessible to the people living inside Jerusalem's city walls and inaccessible to…
Jerusalem: Siloam Tunnel Inscription
This inscription, which was found carved into the wall at the end of the Siloam Tunnel (also known as [King] Hezekiah's Tunnel), tells the story of the carving of the tunnel. It reads, '…the tunneling. And this was how the tunneling was completed: As…
Jerusalem: Gihon Spring
This photograph shows the modern entrance steps that lead down to the Gihon spring, which was the water source for the city of Jerusalem in antiquity. When Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came to besiege Jerusalem in 701 BCE, the Judahite king Hezekiah…
Assyrian Kingdom: Map
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…
Jerusalem: Siloam Tunnel
This photograph shows the inside of the Siloam Tunnel. The water level is higher in the winter than in the summer, this photograph probably having been taken in the winter. The carved ceiling corners and pick marks are clearly visible. The tunnel…
Near Tel Dothan: Bronze Bull
This bronze bull was found on a hilltop southwest of Mt. Gilboa, all the way at the northern end of the central hill. When the site was excavated, excavators found an elliptical wall, 70 feet in diameter, inside of which was a large, roughly hewn…
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…
Nimrud/Kalhu: Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III - detail 4 of 4
This detail photograph of the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE) shows an inscription (at the top, in cuneiform script) that reads, in part, 'The tribute of Jehu (Iaua), son of Omri (Humri); I received from him silver,…
Tags: Assyrian, Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, Iron Age, Jehu, Kalhu, Nimrud, Omri, Shalmaneser III
Nimrud/Kalhu: Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III - detail 3 of 4
This detail photograph of the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE) shows an inscription (at the top, in cuneiform script) that reads, in part, 'The tribute of Jehu (Iaua), son of Omri (Humri); I received from him silver,…
Tags: Assyrian, Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, Iron Age, Jehu, Kalhu, Nimrud, Omri, Shalmaneser III
Nimrud/Kalhu: Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III - detail 2 of 4
This detail photograph of the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE) shows an inscription (at the top, in cuneiform script), part of which reads: "The tribute of Jehu (Iaua), son of Omri (Humri); I received from him silver,…
Tags: Assyrian, Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, Iron Age, Jehu, Kalhu, Nimrud, Omri, Shalmaneser III
Luxor: The Great Harris Papyrus
This wonderfully preserved papyrus, probably created around 1,200 BCE, is one of the longest papyri that has been preserved from ancient Egypt (it is almost 138 feet long). It is divided into three parts; this section is in the part describing the…
Nimrud/Kalhu: Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III - overview
The Black Obelisk of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE) was carved on all four sides and five registers of reliefs illustrate the obeisance of four rulers from Shalmaneser's western campaigns. It is important for the history of…
Tags: Assyrian, Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, Iron Age, Jehu, Kalhu, Nimrud, Omri, Shalmaneser III
Ashkelon: Bronze Osiris Figurine
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…
Nimrud/Kalhu: Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III - detail 1 of 4
This detail photograph of the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE) shows King Jehu, son of King Omri, kissing the ground at Shalmaneser's feet. The divine symbols of the god Shamash (the winged disk) and the goddess Ishtar…
Tags: Assyrian, Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, Iron Age, Jehu, Kalhu, Nimrud, Omri, Shalmaneser III
Southern Coastal Plain: Relief Map
This relief map shows the southern coastal plain from Jerusalem (in the east) to the coast (in the west), and from Joppa (the area of modern Tel Aviv - in the north) down to Gaza (in the south). In the period preceding the Israelite monarchies, this…
Tags: Central Hill, Gaza, Jerusalem, Joppa, Map, Philistine, Relief Map
Ekron: Horned altars
Six of the eleven altars that were found during the excavation of Tel Miqne (biblical Ekron) stand in front of the excavation's directors, Trude Dothan and Sy Gitin. They concluded that Ekron had a primarily Philistine population in the 7th century…
Tags: Altar, Cult, Ekron, Horned altar, Iron Age, Philistine, Tel Miqne
Ashdod: Bronze Age chair figure
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…
Tags: Ashdod, Bronze Age, Figurine, Mycenaean, Philistine, Phoenician
Timna: Hathor Mask
This faience mask, discovered at the Temple of Hathor near the copper mines of Timna in the eastern Sinai Desert, was made to be a representation of the goddess. The eyes are characteristically Egyptian, and clearly were colored. It was one of more…
Tags: Bronze Age, Cult, Hathor, Mask, Sinai Desert, Timna
Timna: Temple of Hathor
This photo shows a small one-room temple enclosure near the copper mines of Timna in the eastern Sinai Desert. It was originally built to the Egyptian goddess Hathor in the 14th or 13th century BCE. Later in the 13th or early 12th century BCE the…
Tags: Bronze Age, Cult, Figurine, Hathor, Sinai Desert, Timna
Tel Megiddo: Late Bronze Age cuneiform tablet
This inscription is written in the Akkadian language that used a cuneiform (literally, 'wedge-shaped') script for letters. The earliest examples of writing from Israel/Palestine are in this script and language. This particular fragment is from…
Tags: Akkadian, Bronze Age, Cuneiform, Epic of Gilgamesh, Megiddo, Mesopotamia
Ashdod: Iron Age Incense Stand
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.
Tags: Ashdod, Iron Age, Philistine
Tel Dor: aerial view
The excavations at Tel Dor, on the coast of Israel between Tel Aviv and Haifa, are barely visibly on the rocky promontory in the low center of this photograph. Dor was one of the Phoenician harbors in antiquity, first settled in the 15th century BCE…
Tags: Phoenician, Tel Dor
Tel Megiddo: the silo
This stone-lined pit is 21 feet deep and 34 feet across and was a municipal grain storage silo between ca. 780-650 BCE. There were two winding staircases that went down into it (one of which is visible on the right side of the photograph). Though no…
Tags: Architecture, Iron Age, Megiddo, Silo, Storehouse
Luxor: Merneptah Stele - detail
This close-up of the name 'Israel,' written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, comes from an inscription written on granite during the reign of the Egyptian king Merneptah (1213-1203 BCE). This is the earliest preserved inscriptional evidence of Israel and…
Tags: Bronze Age, Canaan, Hieroglyphs, Israel, Israelites, Luxor, Merneptah Stele, Thebes
Luxor: The Sea Peoples Inscription
This slide shows the second monumental gateway (called by the Greek word for gateway, 'pylon') of the great mortuary temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu in Thebes. To the left is a relief showing Ramses leading enemy captives, including a row of…
Tags: Bronze Age, Cult, Egypt, Luxor, Medinet Habu, Mortuary Temple, Philistines, Ramses III, Temple, Thebes
Tel Qasile: ceramic cult stands
These pottery stands are shown in situ (as they were left in the 10th century BCE), in a shrine next to the main sanctuary. The stands held bowls, which were found with them. They were used in the temple complex for ritual offering of food to the…
Tags: Bronze Age, Cult, Iron Age, Philistine, Tel Qasile, Temple
Ashdod: Iron I Philistine Pottery
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…
Tags: Ashdod, Bronze Age, Mycenaean, Philistine, Pottery
Tel Qasile: Philistine temple
The remains of this well-preserved house temple at Tel Qasile, near the exit of the Yarkon river to the Mediterranean in central Israel, dates to the 12th-10th century BCE. Excavators recovered a number of cult objects such as incense stands and…
Tags: Bronze Age, Cult, Philistine, Tel Qasile, Temple
Tel Megiddo: aerial view
This aerial photograph shows the site of ancient Megiddo, the most important city of Lower Galilee in antiquity. It sits at a major crossroads at the western end of the Jezreel Valley. Megiddo was inhabited from the Pre-pottery Neolithic period until…
Tags: Jezreel Valley, Lower Galilee, Megiddo
Tel Megiddo: Canaanite outdoor altar (1)
This aerial photograph shows a huge outdoor altar, up to 5 feet high, that was built in the Early Bronze Age (2850-2650 BCE). The altar was accessed via the steps on the left side of the photo, and excavators found pottery and bones surrounding the…
Tags: Bronze Age, Canaanite, Cult, Megiddo, Temple
Tel Megiddo: Canaanite outdoor altar (2)
The round stone mound in this photo—a Canaanite outdoor altar—is also referred to as a 'high place'. It was built around 2,700 BCE and used up to around 1,800 BCE. A 'high place' ('bamah' in the Hebrew Bible) was a place used for worship, in part…
Tags: Bronze Age, Cult, High Place, Megiddo
Tel Hazor: Shrine of the Stelae
This photograph shows an intact shrine from inside the Holy of Holies of a small broadhouse temple (i.e., the entrance is on the broad side of the building). It dates to the 13th century BCE. The stones were all cut from basalt, a local rock. Eight…
Tags: Bronze Age, Cult, Hazor, Holy of Holies, Temple
Tel Hazor: the Pillared Storehouse
This large rectangular building with its double row of pillars was a royal storehouse from the 9th century BCE. Other storehouses like it have been discovered at Megiddo and at Tel Be'er Sheva.
Tags: Hazor, Iron Age, Storehouse
Sumer: Cuneiform script
Writing was invented in southern Mesopotamia, in the ancient kingdom of Sumer, sometime before 3,000 BCE. Cuneiform, the type of writing seen in column 6 of this slide, was a development from earlier 'logographic' writing, in which signs stood for…
Tags: Cuneiform, Logographic, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Sumerian, Syllabic
Tel Hazor: aerial view
Hazor, an ancient city and tel that sits at the southern end of the Huleh Valley in eastern upper Galilee, was one of the largest and most important cities in the region from ca 1,900 BCE until 732 BCE when it was destroyed by the Assyrian king…
Uruk: Sumerian King List
The Sumerian King List is the name given to a traditional canon of the early kings of Mesopotamia, thought by some scholars to have been composed in the time of Utu-hegal, a king of the city of Uruk who restored Sumerian independence after the…
Tags: Cuneiform, Logographic, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Sumerian, Sumerian King List, Syllabic, Uruk
Saqqara: Execration Text
This figurine, modeled in unbaked clay, has the form of a kneeling prisoner with his arms tied behind him at the elbows. The writing is hieratic, a script much like Egyptian hieroglyphics; the inscription contains the names of enemies. After it was…
Tags: Bronze Age, Egyptian, Execration text, Hieratic, Saqqara
Tel Megiddo: the water tunnel
This photograph shows an underground tunnel that was part of Megiddo's water system, which was built in the 9th century BCE. Water was a precious defensive commodity - if a city had any hope of surviving a siege, they had to make sure that their…
Tags: Iron Age, Megiddo, Water system
Tel Hazor: the Upper City
The area with pillars in this photo shows the ancient ruins of a storehouse that dates to the 9th century BCE. The large rooms in the foreground date to the time of Jeroboam II (793-753 BCE). In the background is the snow-covered peak of Mt. Hermon.
Tags: Architecture, Hazor, Iron Age, Storehouse
Luxor: Merneptah Stele - overview
The Merneptah Stele, pictured here, is an inscription written in hieroglyphs on granite during the reign of the Egyptian king Merneptah (1213-1203 BCE). It contains the earliest preserved inscriptional evidence of the name Israel (and perhaps…
Tags: Bronze Age, Canaan, Hieroglyphs, Israel, Israelites, Luxor, Merneptah Stele, Thebes
Near Nahal Tabor: Female Figurine
This 6 inch-high clay figurine dates to the Late Neolithic Age (6,000-5,000 BCE), which is the same time that the earliest baked clay vessels were being made. It is the only complete one of its kind from this period, although fragments have been…
Tags: Fertility, Figurine, Nahal Tabor
Southern Mesopotamia: Cuneiform tablets
The earliest writing was not on paper, but on clay tablets. Instead of a pen, scribes used an instrument called a stylus that was triangular in cross-section. They would press the tip of the stylus into the clay to make the triangular portions of the…
Tags: Cuneiform, Logographic, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Sumerian, Syllabic
Jericho: Neolithic Tower
This photograph shows the earliest fortification structure thus far discovered anywhere in the world. It is a circular tower that was probably built around 7,000 BCE and was connected to a massive stone wall. The position of the tower would have…
Tel Megiddo: Cuneiform tablets
The earliest writing preserved from Israel/Palestine are in the form of cuneiform on clay tablets like this one. The cuneiform script and the languages that were written in it (like Akkadian) were developed in Mesopotamia. This tablet fragment…
Tags: Akkadian, Bronze Age, Cuneiform, Gilgamesh, Megiddo, Mesopotamia
Female Figurines from the Late Bronze Age
These three figurines are characteristic of Late Bronze Age molded plaque figurines. All tend to be nude and standing in frontal position. They probably represented the Canaanite goddess Ashtaroth in her role as goddess of love and procreation.…
Tags: Ashtaroth, Bronze Age, Fertility, Figurine
Tale of Sinuhe
The story of Sinuhe has been preserved on numerous papyri and ostraca. This manuscript is written in an Egyptian script called hieratic, which is closely related to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and dates to the Egyptian 12th Dynasty (ca. 1991-1785 BCE). It…
Tags: Bronze Age, Egyptian, Hieratic, Papyrus, Sinuhe