crusades

By: Hershel Shanks

Archaeologist Hillel Geva says that population estimates for ancient Jerusalem are too high. His new estimates begin with people living on no more than a dozen acres.

By: Nathan Steinmeyer

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) continue to provide evidence of Jerusalem’s power and defensibility throughout history, with excavations along Sultan Suleiman Street revealing […]

By: Mary Joan Winn Leith

“The Cherry Tree Carol” is a Christmas carol that first appeared in 13th-century England; an American version was discovered in Appalachia in the 20th century. Stonehill College Biblical scholar Mary Joan Winn Leith explains the carol’s roots in early Christian Syrian churches.

By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff

Some of the most famous churches in Jerusalem were built during the Christian Crusades by Crusaders wishing to memorialize sites they believed to have great Christian significance.

By: Mary Joan Winn Leith

The Virgin Mary and the prophet Muhammad have a lot in common within their respective Christian and Islamic traditions, according to author Mary Joan Winn Leith.

By: Nathan Steinmeyer

Textual sources are generally our primary source of information about the life and death of soldiers who fought in the Crusades (11th–13th centuries C.E.). Similarly, […]

By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff

Archaeological excavations are prohibited on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, though one project—the Temple Mount Sifting Project—has been analyzing soil that came from the Temple Mount since 2004. Learn the story.

By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff

The Fihrist, and the scholarship it represents, is one of the shining positives that emerged from the Crusades.

By: Megan Sauter

Jerusalem has been revered as a holy city for millennia—with pilgrims a staple feature in its bustling streets. Egeria’s Travels and the journals of the Bordeaux Pilgrim and the Piacenza Pilgrim demonstrate that this was as true in the Byzantine period as it is today.

By: Stephen E. Tabachnick

While the real T.E. Lawrence was not exactly like the character in the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, he was, nevertheless, one of the most colorful figures to emerge from World War I.