Rockefeller Museum
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2 reviews
September 2, 2020
The Rockefeller Museum is an archaeological museum in East Jerusalem opposite Herod's Gate.
The museum houses a large collection of artifacts found during excavations conducted in mandatory Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. The museum is part of the Israel Museum and reports to the main office of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
In 1906, the Jewish National Fund planned to purchase a piece of land known as Karm el-Sheikh for the construction of a School of Arts and Crafts. The founder of the school, Boris Schatz, provided that a panoramic view of the Temple Mount will be opened from the school grounds. In 1919, the British Mandate authorities allowed the construction of an archaeological museum on this site.
The founder and director of Chicago Oriental University, J. G. Brasted, who visited Palestine in 1925, decided that Jerusalem needed an archaeological museum to house important regional finds. Encouraged by the Palestinian High Commissioner, Brasted met American philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who agreed to donate $2 million to the project.The museum was designed by O. Harrison, the chief architect of the Department of Public Works. Harrison drew up the blueprints for the construction of the building from white Jerusalem stone, using a combination of eastern and Western architectural styles. The opening to the public took place on 13.01. 1938. Officially it was called the Palestine Archaeological Museum, but it was also known at that time as the Rockefeller Museum. In 1967, the museum was officially renamed the Rockefeller Museum.
One of the most valuable exhibits of the museum are wooden panels from the Al-Aqsa Mosque of the VIII century and marble lintels from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre of the XII century (the period of the Crusades).Most of the collection consists of finds from the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition features exhibits found in Jerusalem, Megiddo, Ashkelon, Samaria and Jericho.The exposition of the Talmudic era presents a mosaic floor of the VI century, discovered in the ancient synagogue in Ein Gedi.The museum housed some of the Dead Sea scrolls, consisting of Jewish texts and discovered in the Qumran caves between 1947 and 1956.
Visit the museum...and he will not leave you indifferent to his exhibits!
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November 16, 2019
It's free and cool. a lot of history. but everything is in English
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