The episode explores Jerusalem during the British Mandate through one extraordinary building: the Palestine Archaeological Museum, known today as the Rockefeller Museum. Opened in the late 1930s, it was conceived not only as a gallery for antiquities, but as an international center of archaeological research at a pivotal moment in the city’s history.
The film traces Jerusalem’s transformation after the British capture of the city in 1917 and the ambitious urban vision of the 1920s–30s, when modern architecture sought to blend Western forms with local traditions.
At its heart is the creation of the museum itself – from Austen Harrison’s Middle Eastern modernist design and Armenian ceramic artistry, to accidental archaeological discoveries during construction.
Largely preserved as it stood in the mid-20th century, the Rockefeller Museum today is both a treasury of finds – from Jericho, Hisham’s Palace, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and al-Aqsa – and a monument to the scholars who shaped modern archaeology in Jerusalem.
