World politics
fromwww.aljazeera.com
7 hours agoIsrael is trying to change Jerusalem's religious identity
Israel is undermining the Status Quo to exert control over Muslim and Christian religious practices at holy sites in Jerusalem.
Pastor Josh Howerton, leading Lakepointe Church, stated, 'The gospels tell us Jesus was taken outside the city walls to be crucified. This fits. It's within walking distance.' He emphasized the geographical context of the crucifixion.
During Passover, Jewish families gather at their tables to retell a story passed down for thousands of years, recounting the Exodus, the biblical story of the Israelites' liberation from slavery in Egypt.
The ostraca show us an astonishing variety of everyday situations. We find tax lists, deliveries, short notes about everyday activities, religious texts, and priestly certificates attesting the quality of sacrificial animals.
According to the Gospel of John, Roman soldiers broke the legs of the two men executed alongside Jesus to hasten their deaths. But when they came to Jesus, they did not break his legs because they saw he was already dead. This detail has long intrigued historians and doctors because crucifixion victims often survived for many hours, and sometimes days.
Seven were the strings of the lyre (unless there happened to be eight or nine), seven were the gates of Thebes, and seven were the "wandering stars" in the night sky (if you count the sun and moon). The identity of the wonders was less important than the length of their list, and indeed, additions and changes were proposed since the beginning.
Titus Flavius Vespasianus was born in Falacrinae, a rural town northeast of Rome, on 17 November 9 CE. There was nothing in his lineage to suggest that he would one day rule as emperor. Indeed, his ancestors were commoners who did not achieve any kind of prominence until the era of the late Roman Republic, when they came into modest wealth.
Two exceptionally rare and beautifully carved Mithraic altars found in Inveresk, East Lothian, Scotland, are going on display for the first time. They are not just the only Roman altars ever found in Scotland, but are among the finest examples of Roman sculpture in Roman Britain. They are also uniquely early in date, having been made in 140s A.D. during Antoninus Pius' reoccupation of southern Scotland, whereas most other archaeological materials related to the worship of Mithras in Britannia date to the 3rd century.
The remains of a monumental hall belonging to a 4th-century episcopal palace have been discovered at Ostia Antica, Rome's ancient port town. The base of the structure is eight by 20 meters (ca. 26 by 65 feet) and the walls were an estimated eight meters high. This is an extraordinarily large space, and it was richly decorated with mosaic floors and marble panels.
A conversation with Alicia Walker on the pseudo-Arabic inscriptions (or pseudo-kufic) that appear on a number of tenth- and eleventh-century churches in Greece, most notably at the monastery of Hosios Loukas. What did the Arabic script signify in Orthodox culture at the time if not tension with Islam? Alicia Walker is Professor of History of Art at Bryn Mawr College.
The team identified multiple buildings aligned roughly west-east, in several sizes, ranging from about 8 × 7 metres to 14 × 8 metres. Within these structures are rectangular halls-some interpreted as spaces for worship-alongside smaller rooms that may have served devotional or practical functions for the monks. Excavators also noted evidence of plastered wall surfaces and tiled floors, as well as architectural features such as entrances and surviving supports, including beams.
An monumental early Republican-era funerary complex has been discovered in a suburb of Rome. The excavation of the Via di Pietralata east of Rome also uncovered a stretch of an ancient road, a small cult building and two monumental basins dating back to the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. Remains from this early in the Republican era are scarce in the Eternal City, which make these finds very archaeologically significant.