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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
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Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city of religious importance in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Jerusalem’s Old City seen from the north, photographed on 20 July 2012. The Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives appear in the background. This modern view brings together landmarks from several periods; it differs from the city in the time of the kingdom of Judah
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Kingdom of Judah
Judah was an ancient southern Levantine kingdom centered on Jerusalem in the Iron Age
Detail of the Assyrian reliefs showing the siege of Lachish, a city of the kingdom of Judah, during Sennacherib’s campaign of 701 BCE. Carved at Nineveh around 700–692 BCE and held in the British Museum. Photographed on 12 September 2010; an Assyrian representation of the event from the attackers’ perspective
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The Levant
The Levant is a regional name for lands along the eastern Mediterranean
The harbour of Byblos, Lebanon, photographed on 4 September 2008. This modern view offers an example of the Levant’s Mediterranean coast. The region extends beyond this city, and its boundaries vary with period and context
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Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is a salt lake in the Jordan Rift Valley, near sites where ancient manuscripts were found
Sunset over the Dead Sea from its eastern shore at Ghor Al-Haditha, Jordan, on 26 October 2018. The Judean Mountains appear on the western horizon. The photograph illustrates the lake’s geography; the Qumran manuscript caves lie elsewhere on its western side
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Tyre
Tyre is a city on the coast of present-day southern Lebanon and an important ancient Phoenician center
The restored Roman triumphal arch at Al Bass in Tyre, Lebanon, with aqueduct remains on its right. The arch dates to the second century CE. This photograph, taken on 19 November 2019, shows a later phase in the Phoenician city’s history
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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
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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
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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
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Nineveh and Kuyunjik
Nineveh is an ancient Assyrian city near Mosul in northern Iraq; Kuyunjik is one of its archaeological mounds
Kuyunjik mound at Nineveh in northern Iraq, in an April 1990 photograph taken near the northwestern corner of the city wall. A dated archival view of the site at that time; the photographer’s original annotation remains in the image
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Susa, ancient Shush
Susa is an archaeological city at Shush in southwestern present-day Iran
Remains of the Apadana hall of Darius’s palace at Susa, at Shush in southwestern Iran, 18 April 2019. The column bases and archaeological remains appear in the foreground
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Babylon
Babylon is an ancient city in central present-day Iraq, south of Baghdad
The site of Babylon in Iraq, in a photograph dated 2009 on its source page. It includes buildings reconstructed in modern times over the archaeological site, alongside the surrounding land
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Sinai: peninsula and biblical mountain
Sinai is a peninsula in eastern Egypt; in the Torah the name also denotes the mountain of revelation to Moses
A view of the Sinai desert in Egypt, 22 November 2008. It shows the peninsula’s landscape without identifying the mountain meant by the biblical narratives
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Noah
Noah is the flood-story figure in Genesis and a prophet in the Qur’an
Entry of the Animals into Noah’s Ark, an etching by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, around 1650–1655 CE. The Met, 2012.136.525. A seventeenth-century European artistic reading of the story, with the ark visible in the background
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Muhammad, prophet of Islam
Muhammad is the prophet of Islam, living about 570–632 CE in the setting of Islam’s seventh-century emergence
The Green Dome and minarets of the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia, on 26 November 2025. This contemporary photograph shows part of the place associated with Muhammad’s life; the visible buildings reflect later architectural phases
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Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ is Christianity’s central figure, who lived in the first century CE
Christ between two angels in a sixth-century mosaic at the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. He is shown seated above a blue sphere in a cosmic scene. Photograph by José Luiz, 17 September 2016
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Solomon
Solomon is the biblical king, David’s son, associated in Kings with Jerusalem and building the temple
The Judgment of Solomon, an oil painting by Nicolas Poussin from 1649, in the Louvre, INV 7277. It depicts the judgement between two women in 1 Kings 3 and illustrates the story’s reception in seventeenth-century European art
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Abi-milku
Abi-milku was a fourteenth-century BCE ruler of Tyre, known from letters to Egypt’s king
Akkadian letter from Abi-milku, ruler of Tyre, to the Egyptian king, preserved on a clay tablet from the Amarna archive. The Met dates it to about 1347–1330 BCE; object 24.2.12
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Pepi II
Pepi II was an Egyptian king of the Sixth Dynasty in the late third millennium BCE
Queen Ankhnes-meryre II with her son King Pepi II on her lap, in an Egyptian-alabaster statuette of the Sixth Dynasty, late third millennium BCE. Brooklyn Museum, 39.119. Photograph by Stephen Sandoval, February 2009
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Merenre I
Merenre I was an Egyptian king of the Sixth Dynasty in the late third millennium BCE
Egyptian-alabaster vase shaped as a mother monkey holding her young, inscribed with King Merenre I’s name. The Met dates it to about 2255–2246 BCE; object 30.8.134. The royal inscription appears on the shoulder
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Unas
Unas was the last king of Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty, in the late third millennium BCE
The remains of Unas’s pyramid at Saqqara, from the late Fifth Dynasty, around the twenty-fourth century BCE. Its interior preserves the earliest known Pyramid Texts inscribed in a royal pyramid. Photograph by Vincent Brown, 2017
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Shabaka
Shabaka was a Kushite king of Egypt’s Twenty-fifth Dynasty in the late eighth century BCE
Bronze head from a statuette identified by Turin’s Museo Egizio as King Shabaka, of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty. The museum dates the object to 722–655 BCE; inventory Cat. 1394. The image is released by the museum under CC0
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Papanikri
Papanikri is the named ritual specialist associated with a Hittite ritual addressing the omen of a damaged birth stool
Part of the Great Temple ruins at Hattusha, the Hittite capital, near modern Boğazköy in Turkey. UNESCO dates the temple remains to the thirteenth century BCE. Photograph taken on 17 March 2013, providing context for the city that preserved collections of Hittite rituals
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Aqqi in Sargon’s birth story
Aqqi is the irrigator who finds the child in the river and adopts him in Sargon of Akkad’s birth story
A clay tablet from Nineveh preserving Sargon’s birth legend, in which Aqqi is the irrigator who adopts the child. A seventh-century BCE Assyrian copy, British Museum K.3401. Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen, 2012; the narrative is later than the king’s lifetime
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Sargon II
Sargon II was an Assyrian king of the late eighth century BCE; ORACC dates his reign about 721–705 BCE
Sargon II in a relief from Dur-Sharrukin, modern Khorsabad in Iraq, dated by the Louvre to his reign, 721–705 BCE. This source crop shows the king in the scene catalogued as AO 19873 and AO 19874
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Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal was an Assyrian king of the seventh century BCE, reigning about 668–631 BCE
Ashurbanipal stabs a lion in a relief from the North Palace at Nineveh, around 645–635 BCE, now in the British Museum. Attendants accompany the king in this royal hunting scene. Photograph taken on 9 March 2020
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Patrick Gray
Religious studies scholar at Rhodes College, researching the New Testament, early Christianity and biblical interpretation.
Halliburton Tower on the Rhodes College campus in Memphis, Tennessee, on 24 October 2009. The photograph provides context for the institution where Patrick Gray teaches religion, early Christianity and its Greco-Roman setting
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Ignace J. Gelb
University of Chicago Assyriologist (1907–1985), studying ancient languages, writing and personal names, including Amorite names.
Detail of the entrance and modern architectural relief at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago, on 11 November 2023. The institute moved into this building in 1931; Ignace J. Gelb’s work was associated with the institution from 1929. The relief belongs to the twentieth-century architecture
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Kathryn Slanski
Yale scholar of Mesopotamia, studying texts, images, inscribed monuments, law and authority.
Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on 20 April 2026, seen from Elm and High Streets. It provides context for the university that Kathryn Slanski joined in 2004
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Jack M. Sasson
Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern cultures scholar, Vanderbilt professor emeritus, also specializing in Mari’s archives.
Kirkland Hall at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on 26 October 2023. The photograph shows part of the institution associated with Jack M. Sasson’s work in biblical studies and Assyriology
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Nathan J. Chambers
Scholar of Genesis interpretation and Christian theology, studying Genesis 1 and creation from nothing.
Cosin’s Hall on Palace Green in Durham, England. The original photograph dates from July 2006; this crop was made available later by the source. The building provides context for Durham University, where Nathan J. Chambers completed his thesis in 2017
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Gordon H. Johnston
Old Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, examining biblical literature and its ancient Near Eastern contexts.
Hieroglyphic texts on the walls of Unas’s pyramid at Saqqara, from the late Fifth Dynasty, around the twenty-fourth century BCE. Photograph taken on 13 October 2017. The image provides context for ancient Egyptian texts used in scholarly comparisons of creation traditions
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James P. Allen
Egyptologist and Brown professor emeritus, studying ancient Egyptian language, literature and religion, including the Pyramid Texts.
University Hall at Brown University, Rhode Island, in a photograph dated 1 April 1997. It illustrates the university that Egyptologist James P. Allen joined in 2007
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Bruce Wells
Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern law scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, studying legal texts and litigation.
The Main Building Tower at the University of Texas at Austin at dusk, dated 29 September 2013 in the capture metadata. The photograph provides context for the university where Bruce Wells works on Middle Eastern studies and ancient law
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David P. Wright
Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern law and ritual scholar, professor emeritus at Brandeis.
Shapiro Campus Center at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on 7 April 2017. The photograph shows part of the institution associated with David P. Wright’s research on the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East
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