The Israel Museum is basically closed for upgrade, but there are two sections that remain:  The Shrine of the books, and the children’s museum.  The picture above is from the Shrine of the Books.  This is where the scrolls were originally presented.  The structure shown in the picture is actually the roof of the shrine.  It is shaped to represent the top of the bottles that most famous scrolls were stored.  The color of the roof (white) is representative of the forces of good.  Directly opposite this structure is a basic black wall.  This represents the forces of darkness.  There were a number of scrolls that forecast the future battle between these forces and they were very well preserved.  

 

There is a scale model of Jerusalem on the grounds of the museum.  This model depicts the second temple period (we are on number three currently...)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see the expanse of this model in the picture above.  The large building in the front is the temple.  Today there are three groups, the jews, the muslims, and christians.   There are currently many excavations around and under the temple.  It is starting to collapse.  The large court yards on the upper floor of the temple are actually about three stories off the ground.  There are hundreds of arches under the temple floor to support the structure.  These arches are being altered by the excavations which is now having  negative impact on the structure.  

 

In the children’s section there are many sculptures and a small sandbox.  Sandboxes are rare in the city because there are so many feral cats.  The sculpture is generally donated by the patrons of the museum.