Joseph Avis was a Quaker carpenter, joiner, and merchant tailor in the City of London in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He worked under the architects Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke on reconstruction projects in London following the Great Fire of 1666, including several churches, but is best known as the architect of the Bevis Marks Synagogue.
The Jews of Tunis have not been confined to the hara for a long time now. Since the end of the last century, those acquiring a degree of ease have abandoned it and…
Cult statues in Assyrian relief from the Palace of Tiglath-pileser III (reigned 745–727 BCE) in Kalhu/Calah (today’s Nimrud, Iraq). Although no Mesopotamian cult statues have been found, reliefs such…
Embracing couple in ivory inlay, Ugarit, 14th century BCE. This ivory inlay decorated the royal bed from the court of the kings of Ugarit (Syria). The woman has her left arm around the man and with…