Evidence for the material culture of ancient Israel comes mostly from artifacts and archaeology and attests to the influence of the great empires that surrounded Israel.
Cult statues in Assyrian relief from the Palace of Tiglath-pileser III (reigned 745–727 BCE) in Kalhu/Calah (today’s Nimrud, Iraq). Although no Mesopotamian cult statues have been found, reliefs such…
Summer Evening is one of a series of photographs William Klein took in Rome in 1956 when he was there to serve as an assistant on a movie directed by Federico Fellini. Shooting was delayed, so the…
The creator of the popular ritual of placing an orange on the Seder plate describes exactly how this innovation arose, its intended significance, and the problematic erasure of its origins.