Cistern Contents Exploration of a ninth- to eleventh-century C.E. cistern led to the discovery of several ceramic oil lamps and many items of bronze jewelry and cosmetic containers. The two shallow bowls probably held cosmetics (the cover to the smaller bowl is to the right of the larger bowl). At upper right is half of […]
Wooden Pannels from the Al-Aksa Mosque Ilan, Ornit, Image and Artifact; Treasures of the Rockefeller Museum, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2000., p. 100. See also- Dome of the Rock, 688
SilverDirham 8th century silver dirham minted by the first Umayyad caliph of Spain. The inscriptions read, in part, “There is no god but Allah” and state that the piece—roughly equivalent to a U.S. quarter in size and value—was struck in al-Andalus, as the Arabs called their Spanish domain. Stewart, Desmond, Early Islam. New York- Time, […]
New coins were introduced in Jerusalem immediately after the Arab conquest of the city. This copper coin is probably the first to be minted in Jerusalem under Muslim rule (it is only presumed that it was minted in Jerusalem, as the place is not engraved on the coin itself). Apparently this coin was minted prior […]
A team of Hebrew University archaeologists in 1998 discovered a hoard of 82 rare coins buried under the remains of a floor of a Byzantine house on the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias. The coins were minted in the Byzantine Empire from the second half of the 10th century and are of a type scientifically […]
Copper coin probably from the rule of the Caliph Mu’awiyya (661-680), depicting the image of the caliph surrounded by the inscription “Muhammad, Messenger of God.” On the obverse are the names “Falastin,” and “Aelia” (as Jerusalem was called in Roman times and in some places up until the Crusader period). On this side of the […]
The most detailed Muslim account of the fall of Ma’arrat al¬Nu’man (Syria) is that of the chronicler of nearby Aleppo, Ibn al-‘Adim. He emphasizes the carnage and devastation caused in the town- “They [the Franks] killed a great number under torture. They extorted people’s treasures. They prevented people from [getting] water, and sold it to […]
The account of Ibn al-Qalanisi of the actual battle of Antioch when the Muslims came to recapture the city- The relieving army of Syria besieged the Franks until “they were reduced to eating carrion” He continues ‘Thereafter the Franks, though they were in the extremity of weakness, advanced in battle order against the armies of […]
Al-Nuwayri, a Mamluk historian, on the First Crusade- “The beginning of their (Spain’s) appearing, expanding and penetrating into the Islamic lands was in 478. This came about in the following way. When the kings of the land of Spain became divided after the Umayyads and each area fell into the hand of one king and […]
In Muslim Tradition the Dome of the Rock Restored Solomon’s Temple In 638 C.E. Christian Jerusalem fell to a minor Arab officer by the name of Khalid ibn Thabit from the clan of Fahm. The patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, had by then lost all hope of relief from Constantinople, since all the major cities of […]