Texts and their transmission

City

Qazvin

Iranian city that served as a Safavid capital in the later sixteenth century and was associated with manuscript arts.

City

Ephesus

Ancient city in western Türkiye with major Roman and early Christian phases.

City

Tangier

City in northern Morocco by the Strait of Gibraltar, proposed in one interpretation of the Quran's meeting of the seas.

Tangier and its port from the sea, 18 September 2008; a modern city view, not a confirmed location of Moses' story

Site

Saba: the ancient South Arabian kingdom

An ancient South Arabian kingdom centered in present-day Yemen and prominent in the first millennium BCE; its attestation does not establish the Queen of Sheba's biography.

Copper-alloy votive plaque with a Sabaean dedicatory inscription, South Arabia, late first millennium BCE. A witness to Sabaean writing, not to the queen's identity. Met 1993.169; public domain

Site

Derbent

Caspian-coast city in Russia's Dagestan with Sasanian fortifications; its existence does not identify Dhul Qarnayn's barrier.

Derbent's northern city wall in Dagestan, photographed in 2018. It shows a real fortification, not proof of Gog and Magog's barrier

Site

Lydia

Ancient kingdom in western Anatolia with its capital at Sardis; neither a modern state nor a synonym for Magog.

Artemis temple remains at Sardis, ancient Lydia's capital. This temple postdates Gyges; the photograph locates the site rather than his reign

Site

Aulis

Ancient place on the Boeotian coast near the Euripus Strait in Greece; setting of Iphigenia's Greek story and site of a fifth-century BCE Artemis temple.

Artemis sanctuary remains at Aulis, Greece; George E. Koronaios, 2021. Evidence for a cult site, not for Iphigenia's episode

Site

Tauris

Ancient Greek name for Taurian territory on the Black Sea, associated with today's Crimean peninsula; the setting of Euripides' Iphigenia play.

Rocky Black Sea coast in the Crimean peninsula, modern photograph. Regional context for Tauris, not the site of Iphigenia's temple in the play

Site

Zion

Name of a stronghold linked to David's city in 2 Samuel, later extended to Jerusalem and its religious centre; its referent changes across texts.

Modern excavations at the northern end of Jerusalem's eastern hill, photographed in 2011. Context for the city's history, not the site of Abraham's narrated sacrifice

Site

Moriah

The land named in Genesis 22 as Abraham's destination; 2 Chronicles later associates Mount Moriah with the Jerusalem Temple site, not an independently located journey.

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, photographed in 2013. 2 Chronicles associates Mount Moriah with the Temple site; this modern view illustrates that later association, not an independently located Genesis mountain

Site

Crete

Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean, associated in Hesiod with hiding the infant Zeus.

Mountain landscape in the Lefka Ori of Crete, near Pachnes, 5 August 2016, according to the photographer’s metadata. A modern island view, not a location of Zeus’s hiding in the story

Site

Phrygia

Historical inland Anatolian region with an Iron Age kingdom; Gordion was a major center.

Burial mounds MM and P at Gordion, in modern Türkiye. A view of Phrygian remains by Archaeologist 1950, 2 July 2019; regional archaeological context, not evidence for a specific story’s route

Contextual definition

Cilicia

Historical region on Anatolia’s southern coast in modern Türkiye, with plains and uplands connected to the Levant and Anatolian interior.

The gateway known as Cleopatra’s Gate in Tarsus, a city of historical Cilicia in modern Türkiye, 3 October 2005. A view of a place in the region; the popular name does not date the visible building

Contextual definition

Birmingham, United Kingdom

Birmingham is a city in England whose university preserves early Qur’anic parchment leaves

The public Library of Birmingham, England, on 6 September 2025. A contemporary city view; the Qur’anic leaves are held by the university’s Cadbury Research Library, a different institution

Contextual definition

New York City

New York City is in the United States and houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lower Manhattan, New York City, seen from Governors Island in 2017. A contemporary city view; the Metropolitan Museum mentioned in the definition is not shown

Contextual definition

Memphis in Egypt

Memphis is an ancient Egyptian city near Mit Rahina south of present-day Cairo

The large statue of Ramesses II at Memphis/Mit Rahina, Egypt, photographed on 17 June 2007. It belongs to the New Kingdom in the thirteenth century BCE, one of the later phases in the city’s long history

Contextual definition

Hermopolis, Khemenu

Hermopolis is an ancient Egyptian city at Ashmunein, called Khemenu in Egyptian

A colossal statue of Thoth as a baboon at Ashmunein/Hermopolis, from Amenhotep III’s reign in the fourteenth century BCE. Photographed on 18 September 2006; it offers a material example of the city’s association with Thoth

Contextual definition

Heliopolis, ancient Iunu

Heliopolis is the Greek name of Egyptian Iunu, at Matariya in northern present-day Cairo

The obelisk of Senusret I at Matariya in Cairo, at the site of ancient Iunu/Heliopolis, 2 September 2001. It belongs to the Middle Kingdom, in the twentieth century BCE; the monument’s date differs from that of this modern photograph

Contextual definition

Iran

Iran is the modern country containing Shush, ancient Susa

Ruins of Darius’s palace at Persepolis in southwestern Iran, 24 September 2016. They belong to the Achaemenid period; construction of the site’s complex began around 518 BCE. This is one ancient Iranian site, distinct from Susa mentioned in the definition

Contextual definition

Egypt

Egypt lies mainly in northeastern Africa and includes the Sinai Peninsula in Asia

The Nile at Aswan in southern Egypt, 23 May 2007. A modern view of the river, its banks and sailing boats, illustrating part of the Nile Valley’s geographical setting

Contextual definition

Iraq

Iraq is a modern country encompassing much of ancient Mesopotamia

The Tigris in Baghdad, Iraq, on the evening of 29 December 2021. A modern river and city view illustrating the present geographical setting of Mesopotamia

Contextual definition

Turkey

Turkey is a modern country including Anatolia and territory in southeastern Europe

Ortaköy Mosque and the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, June 2008. A modern view of the strait and the bridge joining the city’s European and Asian shores

Contextual definition

Anatolia

Anatolia is the region occupying the Asian part of present-day Turkey

Aktepe Hill near Göreme in Cappadocia, central Anatolia in present-day Turkey, 31 July 2009. A landscape photograph, not a representation of one particular ancient kingdom or people

Site

Eden: The Setting of Genesis’s Garden

The place in which the garden of Genesis 2–3 is planted; the story describes rivers, trees and a human test, while its archaeological location and name’s derivation remain unsettled.

Modern conceptual illustration combining a Dilmun-like quay, fresh water and a garden to frame the comparison; neither an archaeological reconstruction nor a location of Eden. © IL Archive, CC0

Site

Dilmun: Ancient Gulf Land and Literary Setting

An ancient Gulf trading region linked archaeologically to Bahrain and also a Sumerian literary setting whose mythical scenes are not all historical descriptions.

Modern conceptual illustration combining a Dilmun-like quay, fresh water and a garden to frame the comparison; neither an archaeological reconstruction nor a location of Eden. © IL Archive, CC0

Site

Elephantine / Yeb

Island near Aswan at the Nile’s first cataract; Persian-period Aramaic papyri document a Jewish community and Yaho’s temple.

Modern view of Elephantine Island and the Nile near Aswan; geographical context, not the remains of Yaho’s temple

Site

Qumran

Site near the northwestern Dead Sea; neighboring caves preserve ancient Jewish textual finds, not one complete Bible.

Qumran site remains in a modern photograph. Context for the manuscripts, not Cave 4 or a Jeremiah fragment. Original preserved; display resized without cropping

City

Uruk

Ancient city at Warka in southern Iraq, a major urban centre around 3200 BCE that preserved early writing and accounting tablets.

Architectural remains at Uruk/Warka, photographed by David Stanley, 9 April 2016. The sign is modern; its claim about first writing is not independent evidence of global priority or an exact invention date