Image Details

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-matpc-05895

HIDDEN BEAUTY. Visitors would not have seen Al-Aqsa’s ancient wooden beams exposed before they were dismantled in the 1930s and 1940s. As seen in the archive photo above, dark painted boards, affixed with nails and brackets, covered beams on the nave’s ceiling, and the bond timbers over the columns were elegantly painted or covered by plaster and whitewash.