Browse Items (103 total)

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking west and shows a reconstruction of the Second Temple itself (after King Herod's renovations). The Holy of Holies would…

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph is looking from north to south at the Antonia Fortress, which sat at the north edge of the Temple Mount complex (the Temple…

This photograph, looking east, shows the proximity of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the two domes in the foreground) to the Dome of the Rock (in the background). The Mount of Olives and the Arab village of Et Tur (the smaller of the two towers on…

This photograph shows the proximity of the Western Wall (sometimes called the Wailing Wall) to the Dome of the Rock. The Western Wall, at the center of the photograph, is the western wall of the Temple Mount that was built by Herod the Great and on…

This photograph of the interior of the Dome of the Rock shows the symmetry of the architectural plan and the lavish geometric decoration adorning the walls and arches. Beneath the dome, at the center of the structure (just on the other side of the…

This is a photograph of the interior of the dome that sits on the Dome of the Rock. It was planned as a deliberate imitation of the vault over the Anastasis of the Holy Sepulchre; even the size of this hemisphere is within a few feet of the…

This photograph, taken from the top of the Temple Mount platform, shows the Dome of the Rock in the background and the Dome of the Spirits in the foreground. The Dome of the Spirits is one of several lesser shrines that dot the top of the Temple…

This photograph of the Dome of the Rock shows its octagonal structure and its golden dome. Beneath the dome, at the center of the structure is the bedrock called the Sakhra. For centuries it was misnamed the Mosque of Omar. Omar did erect a simple…

This 3-dimensional reconstruction of the Temple Mount shows the various stages of construction, as well as the piece of bedrock (the Sakhra) that sits at the center of the Dome of the Rock (the Kubbat as Sakhra).

This close-up of the Dome of the Rock shows the beauty and riches of its present decoration. It was commissioned by Abd al-Malik in 687 CE and completed in 691 CE. Suleiman the Magnificent carried out extensive restorations of the building in the…

This photograph shows the Dome of the Rock (Arabic: "Kubbat as Sakhra") looking east. For centuries it was misnamed the Mosque of Omar. Omar did erect a simple wooden mosque at the site, but that was replaced by his successor Caliph Abd al-Malik, who…

This photograph shows the Arch of Titus, which was erected near the eastern entrance to the Forum of the city of Rome to commemorate Titus's defeat of the Jews and the taking of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The inscription at the top reads 'The Roman Senate…

This aerial view of the Temple Mount, which is looking west, shows not just the massive Temple Mount complex with its retaining walls and the Dome of the Rock, but also the Al Aqsa Mosque (to the left, at the south end of the Temple Mount complex).…

This fish-eye photograph was taken inside the Dome of the Rock. Above you can see the intricate artistic styling that decorates the underside of the dome; below you can see the section of bedrock around which the building was built. Muslims believe…

This 19th century lithograph shows two of three arches (there would have been another small arch on the right side of the large arch), which is typical of arches built during Hadrian's time. Arches built during Herod's time were typically double…

This picture shows the Ecce Homo arch, which was the large central arch of Hadrian's east forum. It stands over the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem outside the Sisters of Zion Convent. Note how more modern buildings have been built around…

This photograph shows details of the relief carving under the Arch of Titus, located near the eastern entrance to the Forum in Rome. The arch was erected by emperor Domitian, Titus' brother, to honor and commemorate the defeat of the Jews and the…

This photograph shows a street of the Old City of Jerusalem today. People still use the same layout as Suleiman's city.

This map was found to be part of the mosaic floor of a 6th century CE church in Madaba, Jordan (east of the Dead Sea), and includes this map of Byzantine Jerusalem. A broad, column-lined street runs from the north gate south through the center of the…

This map of Jerusalem has a circle around the location of the modern Damascus Gate, one of the northern gates into the Old City of Jerusalem. The modern gate, which was built during the Ottoman period, sits atop a Roman gate that was built in the…

A look from the north at the Damascus Gate, which is one of the northern gates into the Old City of Jerusalem. The gate that you see at the center of the photograph, as well as the walls to its right and left, are Ottoman in date, built by Suleiman…

This photograph shows the British General Edmund Allenby entering Jerusalem after the British took the city in World War I. He dismounted and walked into the city out of respect for it and in contradistinction to the German Emperor Wilhelm II's entry…

The raking light in this aerial view of the Old City of Jerusalem, looking east toward the Judaean Desert, clearly shows the Old City walls, which were built according to the orders of Suleiman the Magnificent in the first half of the 16th century…

This photograph shows a small aedicule, a chapel built over the rock cut empty tomb believed to belong to Jesus. It stands at the center of the rotunda, the round architectural structure that was built there by the Crusaders and right underneath the…

This map was found to be part of the mosaic floor of a 6th century CE church in Madaba, Jordan (east of the Dead Sea), and includes this map of Byzantine Jerusalem. A broad, column-lined street runs from the north gate south through the center of the…

This plan shows the original layout of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the time of Constantine and his mother Helen. The complex is made of 3 separate units: at the bottom of the plan, a basilica ending with an apse and Golgotha incorporated into…

This close-up of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is looking northwest, shows the two domes of the church: the Anastasis (the larger dome, on the left) and the dome over the basilica (the smaller dome, on the right). The entrance to the…

This map of Jerusalem during time of the Crusades highlights the 3 religious foci in the city: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the yellow circle) and the two additional crusader structures that were erected on Temple Mount: the crusaders converted…

This photograph shows the interior of the Aedicule of the Anastasis, where Christians as early as the 4th century CE believed that Jesus' body was laid before his resurrection.

This photograph is taken from the Armenian chapel dedicated to Queen Helena (the mother of Constantine who was entrusted by her son to oversee the building of the church in the 4th century CE). The steps in the background are the 29 steps that lead…

This photograph shows a gold ring that depicts the Aedicule of the Anastasis at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was found in a 6th-century building south of the Temple Mount and shows the Anastasis as a free-standing structure (which was how it…

This aerial view of the Temple Mount, which is 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, at the south end of the Temple Mount complex) and the eastern wall of the…

This map represents the common scholarly opinion about what the layout of Jerusalem looked like after the Second Temple period. The Jewish Temple has been destroyed and, as many scholars believe, a new temple to the Roman god Jupiter has been erected…

In the background of this aerial photograph of the Old City of Jerusalem we see the hills of the Judaean desert, as well as Transjordan in the distance. In the near distance, just beyond the city, is the Mount of Olives and Mt. Scopus. In the center…

This close-up aerial photo of the Old City of Jerusalem depicts the complex of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (at the bottom left, with the two grey domes). In the middle background is the Temple Mount and the golden dome of the Dome of the Rock.…

This aerial photograph of the Temple Mount compound, taken from the northeast, shows the large platform at its center, on which sits the Dome of the Rock. To the left of the Dome is the Al Aqsa Mosque, and in the close foreground (at the bottom of…

This photograph shows a vertical seam in the eastern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The 100 foot-wide southernmost stretch of the wall (the left half in the photo) is clearly Herodian construction and indicative of the King Herod's additions…

In this photograph the Dome of the Rock is visible in the upper left and the dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is visible in the upper right. Below them, Robinson's Arch is visible, springing out of the Western Wall (to the left). The tower rising up at the…

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 and the hills of the Judaean desert to the far right.…

This photograph was taken underneath the Temple Mount, in the area known as Solomon's Stables (at the southern end of the Temple Mount, underneath the current Al Aqsa Mosque). Rather than being stables, they are cavernous halls that were built during…

This aerial photograph shows the southern part of the Temple Mount and its massive wall. In the foreground of this photograph is the spine of the hill that was the location of the City of David in the First Temple period. To the top right is the…

This aerial photograph of the modern Temple Mount, looking toward the northeast (with the Dome of the Rock roughly in its center and the gray dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque at its southern end), one can see just how large and well-built King Herod's…

In this drawing, the yellow pieces are those that have been found in archaeological excavations and the rest are an architect's reconstruction of how the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount probably looked in the Second Temple period: a…

This photograph shows the 'springer' for Robinson's Arch. In 1838, Edward Robinson noticed the strange, curved stones jutting out of the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount (to the upper left of center in this photograph). He realized that these…

The mosaic floor, stone-carved table, and stone vessels are from the Jerusalem Jewish Quarter excavations, which revealed the upper-class houses from the Second Temple period. As a result, we can say that, for instance, upper-class Jerusalemites in…

This photograph shows the detail of extra-long blocks that King Herod's engineers used to bind the existing exterior walls of the Temple Mount compound to the southern addition that he was building. Some of these blocks measure 39 feet long and weigh…

This inscription, written in Greek, was found in the City of David, south of the Temple Mount, in 1914. It can be dated, on the basis of script, to the reign of King Herod (37-4 BCE), and its content points to a synagogue having been built in…

This scale model of Second Temple Jerusalem resides at the Israel Museum in modern Jerusalem. This particular photograph shows the towers that were part of a defense system of Jerusalem constructed by Herod the Great at its western border to guard…

An especially high quality of pottery, modeled after Nabataean pottery, was produced in Jerusalem toward the end of the Second Temple period. It is very thin and delicate, with hand-painted designs that are impressive for this period. Note the lack…

This monumental staircase, located to the south of the Temple Mount compound (the wall of which is seen in the background) is one of two that led up to the Double and Triple Huldah Gates and into the Temple Mount. They were built as part of King…