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In these fragments of a mural from Kuntillet Ajrud, only partially preserved, a seated male figure appears to be wearing a wide-collared yellow garment. A long sidelock is visible in front of his ear…
Palace façade in Assyrian relief, Khorsabad. This illustration is based on an Assyrian relief from the palace of Sargon II (reigned 722–705 BCE), Khorsabad. The relief shows pillars topped by volute…
The palm and the palmette are common iconographic elements in ancient Near Eastern art, appearing, for example, in ivory decoration (see Ivory and Bone Carvings and Engraved Seashells) and in Assyrian…
Jacob Ries (1660–1751) of Prague first worked as a badchan (jester) for weddings. In 1710, he became court jester in Vienna under Charles VI. The artist of this portrait of Ries is not known. It…
Tomb of Cyrus, King of Persia (reigned 559–530 BCE). The tomb stands in Cyrus’ capital, Pasargadae (near today’s Shiraz, Iran). See the Cyrus Cylinder for Cyrus’ role in the return of Judeans from…
Phoenician ship in Assyrian relief from palace of Sennacherib (reigned 705–681 BCE), Nineveh. Transport galleys flee Tyre in the face of Sennacherib’s attack in 701 BCE. Soldiers and passengers stand…
This impressive cut-paper birth amulet is in the form of the double eagle, the symbol of the Habsburg Monarchy (and pre-partition Poland) and thus a popular motif in Galician Jewish folk art. It is…
In Alexander Tyshler’s illustration for a Yiddish version of the Sleeping Beauty story, characters seated around a table are packed together like puzzle pieces, enclosed in a rectangular shape from…
Many of the seal impressions, with the inscription lamelekh “(Belonging, or pertaining) to the king,” followed by the name of a city, feature a two-winged figure, probably a winged sun disk…
Some lamelekh impressions, like this one from Lachish, have a four-winged scarab beetle as their central image. The scarab beetle was an important mythological symbol in Egypt, associated with Khepri…
