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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).