Aelia Capitolina

Author(s):  
Jon Seligman ◽  
Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah

After the sacking of the Herodian Jerusalem in 70 ce, the city came under direct Roman rule. The Jewish residents were killed or exiled, the city destroyed, and a military camp of the Tenth Roman Legion Fretensis was established on a part of the ruins. Around 130 ce, Emperor Hadrian founded in place of the ruined Jewish city Jerusalem, a colony named Aelia Capitolina, in honor of his clan and the Capitoline Triad. After dismantling the remnants of the Herodian city and its magnificent Temple, the Romans rebuilt the city according to classical orthogonal design. The new city was smaller in size and different in shape relative to the former settlement. From the limited historical sources, we learn that Aelia Capitolina was divided into seven quarters, covering some one hundred hectares and comprised a number of major structures. The new city was characterized by parallel straight streets that cross each other on the cardinal axis, a layout that still forms the basis for the Old City today. The major streets were colonnaded and dotted with triumphal arches and monumental buildings. Though an issue of scholarly debate, it seems that the Tenth Legion’s camp was located in the southwestern part of the city, integrating the three extant Herodian three towers and a portion of the western city wall into its defenses. Furthermore, the Temple Mount enclosure, too large to be destroyed, was rebuilt by the Romans, and incorporated in the new city, as a civic or religious center. The expulsion of the Jewish inhabitants left Aelia Capitolina lightly populated, a situation only partially rectified by the encouragement of settlement by veterans and their families, together with Hellenic groups living in Provincia Palaestina.

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Leppäkari

Every now and then instances of violence are played out at the Temple Mount area in Jerusalem, also known as the Haram-esh-sharif. Some of the cases are referred to as results of the so-called ‘Jerusalem syndrome’, incidents when individuals’ manifestations of pre-existing psychopathology culminate in violent actions. Israeli psychiatrists and others have treated such incidents as examples of when peoples’ expectations of a heavenly Jerusalem collide with the very earthly reality in the city. For some people, such encounters may create anxiety that may threaten the victim’s very sanity. In such situations, an apocalyptic mission may become the only way for them to cope with the situation at hand. But the Temple Mount does not only attract lone-acting individuals, it also attracts organized groups who refer to the very spot as an important identity marker. In this article, the author draws on her field research material and interviews with Jewish Third Temple activists in Jerusalem collected on and off between 1998 and 2004. Here Yehuda Etzion’s, Gershon Salomon’s and Yoel Lerner’s theology and activities are studied in light of apocalyptic representations, and how these are expressed in relation to religious longing for the Third Temple in the light of the Gaza withdrawal. Not all those who are engaged in endtime scenarios act upon their visions. In Jerusalem, there have been, and still are, several religious-political groups that more or less ritually perambulate the Temple Mount area. 


Author(s):  
Clyde E. Fant ◽  
Mitchell G. Reddish

Izmir, the modern name for the city that once was known as Smyrna, is the third largest city in Turkey, with a population of around 3 million. Situated on the Aegean coast, it is Turkey’s second busiest port. Not only is Izmir an interesting place itself to visit, but the city also serves as a good base from which to visit several important sites in the area, such as the ancient cities of Ephesus, Sardis, Miletus, Didyma, and Priene. The ancient city of Smyrna, which according to some reports was the birthplace of Homer, was commercially successful due to its harbor and its location (approximately 35 miles north of Ephesus) at the end of a major route through Asia Minor. The earliest settlement at this location was in the first half of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. on a hill known as Tepekule in the Bayraklï suburb of the city. In the 10th century B.C.E., the first Greek colonists from Aeolia settled at Tepekule. They remained there until the end of the 8th century, when Ionian Greeks took over. Excavations at the site have uncovered houses from the 9th to the 7th centuries B.C.E. In the 7th century a temple to Athena was built. This temple was destroyed around 600 B.C.E. by King Alyattes of Lydia when he captured the city. The people of Smyrna rebuilt and enlarged the temple, but it was destroyed again around 545 B.C.E., this time by the Persians. An insignificant settlement in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E., the site was finally abandoned. According to a story related by Pausanias (Description of Greece 7.5.1–3), the city was refounded by Alexander the Great, who was instructed in a dream to establish a new city on Mt. Pagus (now the site of the Kadifekale, or “Velvet Fortress”). The new city was actually not started until the beginning of the 3rd century by the Hellenistic ruler Lysimachus. During the subsequent centuries Smyrna, situated around the harbor, grew and prospered. By the 1st century B.C.E., Strabo was able to describe Smyrna as “the most beautiful of all” cities (Geography 14.646).


Iraq ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 173-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. George

The intention of this article is to continue the process of comparing modern archaeological data relating to Babylon and its buildings with the ancient written sources. Previous work has produced results for the topography of the city, particularly the location of the city's gates, quarters and temples, and has achieved some success with two individual structures, namely the temple of Marduk under the mound Amran ibn Ali, and the eastern city wall at its junction with the river defences to the south of the same mound. A newly published text adds considerably to the textual material avail able for study of the cult-centre of Marduk, so that it is useful once again to go back inside E-sagil (E-sangil).Given the exalted position of Marduk's temple at Babylon as the supreme sanctuary of Babylonia in the first millennium, it is no surprise that there survives a relatively large number of documentary sources which shed light on this building, its ground-plan and its interior. These include building inscriptions, of course, but such texts are not informative about lay-out so much as the work undertaken. Rituals are also useful, in that they sometimes describe the progress of processions in temples, but the most rewarding texts for those who would wish to know more about the ground-plan of the temple, its architecture and cultic fixtures and fittings, are: a) metrological texts which give measurements of temples, and b) “topographical” and other texts which list the ceremonial names of shrines, gates, throne-daises and other cultic fixtures and fittings.


Author(s):  
Simon James

In the foregoing, it was argued that the unitary base area seen in the third century, encompassing the entire N part of the city from the W defences almost to the River Gate, resulted from expansion and coalescence of two later-second-century nuclei, one near the Temple of Bêl, the other focused on the Citadel. Subsequently, presumably increasing Roman troop numbers at Dura led to takeover of the far N part of the intramural area, linking up the military holdings. But why did it start as two nuclei? When Roman power became permanently established over Dura c.165, and a decision was made to station Palmyrene symmachiarii there, while the Realpolitik may have been that these were proxy forces holding the city for Rome, the option of sending in troops from a long-standing friend of Dura may have been chosen as a face-saving measure for the Durene elite. The Palmyrenes were likely presented as defending the newly ‘liberated’ city from Arsacid interference. Under such circumstances, a less obtrusive, peripheral location would have been appropriate. The zone around the Temple of Bêl appears at the time to have comprised only partially built-up city blocks offering open ground, with more free space along the city wall to accommodate the Palmyrene force with minimal disruption to civic life. The temple plaza also offered a ready-made military assembly space. It is further possible that the Palmyrenes attested in Arsacid Dura—visiting traders and soldiers, and resident expatriates—already tended to congregate in or use this zone, around the temple which, at least later, would become especially associated with Palmyrene Bêl. With subsequent arrival of regular Roman troops, and the proposed enrolling of the Palmyrene archers as the nucleus of the nascent cohors XX, the NW cantonment was then probably expanded as it was developed into a Roman auxiliary base. With regard to the inner wadi/Citadel zone, it was suggested above that the incoming Romans would have taken over the great inner stronghold by default, as part of the defensive circuit. They also used the flat wadi floor in its shadow as a campus.


Author(s):  
Galit Noga-Banai

For the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.—Habakkuk 2:11.AMONG THE PAGAN CITIES THAT WENT THROUGH “CONVERSION” TO Christianity in the fourth century, two were linked to Jerusalem by witness of stone and wood: Aelia Capitolina and Rome. The pagan identity of Aelia Capitolina—the Roman city founded by Hadrian in 135 CE on the ruins of Jerusalem—was exposed by the sanctuaries and statues of Roman deities erected in central places, notably, the Temple Mount. During the fourth century, however, the city was defined less and less by the presence of Jupiter’s temple and more and more by the absence of the Jewish Temple. This lack of a Jewish visual frame and physical medium was made more palpable by the looming constructions that now began to mark the sites of Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. It was time to remember the Jewish past in order to construct a meaningful configuration of the New Jerusalem. But Rome itself had laid claim to Jerusalem’s Jewish past. It was home to the Temple spoils, transferred, or better, “translated” to the city by Titus in 71 CE. Whether they were kept in the city or later taken away, the Temple cult vessels were sculpted in stone, for all to see, on the Arch of Titus. Sometime in the fourth century, a relic of the True Cross was also translated from Jerusalem to Rome, turning Rome into the home of relics of both Old and New Jerusalem....


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
Albrecht Berger
Keyword(s):  
New City ◽  
The City ◽  

In his new city Constantinople, Constantine the Great established an imperial cult with pagan elements prevailing over Christian ones. This can be seen from a number of monuments and buildings, such as the Forum of Constantine with the emperor’s statue on a column, the Capitol, the emperor’s mausoleum, the Mesomphalon, and the temple of the city goddess Tyche.


Author(s):  
Kathryn A. Sloan

Popular culture has long conflated Mexico with the macabre. Some persuasive intellectuals argue that Mexicans have a special relationship with death, formed in the crucible of their hybrid Aztec-European heritage. Death is their intimate friend; death is mocked and accepted with irony and fatalistic abandon. The commonplace nature of death desensitizes Mexicans to suffering. Death, simply put, defines Mexico. There must have been historical actors who looked away from human misery, but to essentialize a diverse group of people as possessing a unique death cult delights those who want to see the exotic in Mexico or distinguish that society from its peers. Examining tragic and untimely death—namely self-annihilation—reveals a counter narrative. What could be more chilling than suicide, especially the violent death of the young? What desperation or madness pushed the victim to raise the gun to the temple or slip the noose around the neck? A close examination of a wide range of twentieth-century historical documents proves that Mexicans did not accept death with a cavalier chuckle nor develop a unique death cult, for that matter. Quite the reverse, Mexicans behaved just as their contemporaries did in Austria, France, England, and the United States. They devoted scientific inquiry to the malady and mourned the loss of each life to suicide.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 254
Author(s):  
Anna Puji Lestari ◽  
Yuliyanto Budi Setiawan

After changing its city branding several times, Semarang now has a new city branding, namely "Semarang Variety of Culture." However, the city branding reaped contra from academics and cultural figures because Semarang was considered not sufficient yet in terms of representing its cultural diversity. Responding to this, the Semarang City Government and the Semarang City Public Works Department created a public service advertisement on CCTV socialization for flood control in the city of Semarang with a transgender figure as the ad star. This research was qualitative research designed with Seymour Chatman's Narrative Analysis. The research found a commodification and objectification of transgender people who imitated the feminine style of women in the advertisement. In other words, the public service announcement of Semarang CCTV socialization lowered the femininity, which is synonymous with women.The public service advertisement also violated the moral codes adopted by the majority of the Indonesian people.


Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Catarina C. Rolim ◽  
Patrícia Baptista

Several solutions and city planning policies have emerged to promote climate change and sustainable cities. The Sharing Cities program has the ambition of contributing to climate change mitigation by improving urban mobility, energy efficiency in buildings and reducing carbon emissions by successfully engaging citizens and fostering local-level innovation. A Digital Social Market (DSM), named Sharing Lisboa, was developed in Lisbon, Portugal, supported by an application (APP), enabling the exchange of goods and services bringing citizens together to support a common cause: three schools competing during one academic year (2018/2019) to win a final prize with the engagement of school community and surrounding community. Sharing Lisboa aimed to promote behaviour change and the adoption of energy-saving behaviours such as cycling and walking with the support of local businesses. Participants earned points that reverted to the cause (school) they supported. A total of 1260 users was registered in the APP, collecting more than 850,000 points through approximately 17,000 transactions. This paper explores how the DSM has the potential to become a new city service promoting its sustainable development. Furthermore, it is crucial for this concept to reach economic viability through a business model that is both profitable and useful for the city, businesses and citizens, since investment will be required for infrastructure and management of such a market.


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 687
Author(s):  
Ildikó Sz. Kristóf

This is a historical anthropological study of a period of social and religious tensions in a Calvinist city in the Kingdom of Hungary in the first half of the 18th century. The last and greatest plague epidemic to devastate Hungary and Transylvania between cca. 1738 and 1743 led to a clash of different opinions and beliefs on the origin of the plague and ways of fighting it. Situated on the Great Hungarian Plain, the city of Debrecen saw not only frequent violations of the imposed lockdown measures among its inhabitants but also a major uprising in 1739. The author examines the historical sources (handwritten city records, written and printed regulations, criminal proceedings, and other documents) to be found in the Debrecen city archives, as well as the writings of the local Calvinist pastors published in the same town. The purpose of the study is to outline the main directions of interpretation concerning the plague and manifest in the urban uprising. According to the findings of the author, there was a stricter and chronologically earlier direction, more in keeping with local Puritanism in the second half of the 17th century, and there was also a more moderate and later one, more in line with the assumptions and expectations of late 18th-century medical science. While the former set of interpretations seems to have been founded especially on a so-called “internal” cure (i.e., religious piety and repentance), the latter proposed mostly “external” means (i.e., quarantine measures and herbal medicine) to avoid the plague and be rid of it. There seems to have existed, however, a third set of interpretations: that of folk beliefs and practices, i.e., sorcery and magic. According to the files, a number of so-called “wise women” also attempted to cure the plague-stricken by magical means. The third set of interpretations and their implied practices were not tolerated by either of the other two. The author provides a detailed micro-historical analysis of local events and the social and religious discourses into which they were embedded.


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