Image Details

JOHN DAMBIK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

POPULAR DESTINATION. Just as today, Jerusalem was home to diverse communities in the late Second Temple period (first century B.C.E. to first century C.E.). Burial practices—then and now—shed light on the city’s population. In this photo, taken from the Mt. of Olives, some burials are visible, including a Jewish cemetery (foreground), a Muslim cemetery (along the eastern wall of King Herod’s Temple Mount platform), and ancient Jewish burial monuments (e.g., the top of Absalom’s Pillar, likely constructed in the first century C.E., appears at lower right).