Browse Items (34 total)

This map of Israel/Palestine in the time of Jesus shows the locations of Bethlehem and Nazareth, the two central sites associated with the birth of Jesus. Note also the anachronism in the previous statement: the region was not called 'Palestine'…

This map shows the gradual expansion of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean between the years 100 BCE and 150 CE. Red areas indicate Roman control in 100 BCE; yellow areas indicate the extent of the empire at the time of Julius Caesar's death…

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 shows the number of Arab villages on the eve of the arrival of the first Zionist colonies in the late 1800s. As you can see, Palestine was widely and fairly densely populated, which conflicts with Zionist claims about the land being largely…

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…

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 shows the Rhodes Armistice Line, which delineated Israel from Transjordan after the 1948-1949 War. The armistice line provided Israel with the area that is shaded blue; the West Bank and Gaza were given to Jordan and Egypt, respectively,…

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…

This map represents the military movements in the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the 13th century CE, including the 7th Crusade of King Louis IX in 1248 CE from France to Egypt (red) and the move of the Mongols in the 13th century, emanating…

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…

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…

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 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 map shows the 3 political powers in the Mediterranean world on the eve of the Crusades: Catholic Europe (yellow); the Byzantine Empire (orange); and the Arab kingdoms of the Middle East and North Africa (red). The arrows represent the various…

This map shows the provinces of Roman control around the Mediterranean. The red circle is around Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire, and the arrow points to the city of Constantinople, which is where Constantine moved the capital of the Empire in…

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…

This map shows both the size of Herod's kingdom at the beginning of his reign (the purple areas that include Judaea, Perea, and Galilee) and the regions that were given to him later by his Roman benefactors, mainly the emperor Augustus (the lighter…

This map shows the gradual expansion of the Roman Empire around the Mediterranean between the years 100 BCE and 150 CE. Red areas indicate Roman control in 100 BCE; yellow areas indicate the extent of the empire at the time of Julius Caesar's death…

This map shows the expansion of the Hasmonaean kingdom in the period between 160 and 76 BCE. The capital of the kingdom was always in Judaea, colored light blue. The Hasmonaean ruler Jonathan (160-142 BCE) added the yellow portions; his brother Simon…

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 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…

This maps shows the Persian divisions (also known as provinces, or pahva in Persian) of Israel/Palestine: Samaria, Judah, Idumaea, Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

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 map shows the regional divisions (hyparchies) in the Ptolemaic Period (i.e., 312-198 BCE): Phoenicia, Galilee, Samaria, Judaea, Perea, Ammonitis, Moabitis, and Idumaea.

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…

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…

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…

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:…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The Sinai Desert is bounded by the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba. The region names on this map (Moab, Edom, Midian, Goshen, and Egypt), as well as the names and locations of the cities, are those of the Biblical period (Bronze and Iron Ages).…

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…