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Interpreting the Maps of Diaspora

The Hebrew peoples were originally nomadic. Their origins lie with the Patriarch Abraham and his migration from Mesopotamia to the Promised Land of Canaan, where his followers and descendants settled [4].  His wanderings are traced in the small inset map (upper left). The larger map depicts the ancient tribal divisions of the Land of Canaan as described in Genesis.

The decorative border of this historical reconstruction, engraved by the Flemish cartographer Ortelius in 1586, contains twenty-two medallions portraying scenes from the life of Abraham. 

 After the enslavement of the Hebrews in Egypt, Moses led them back to their “promised land” in the Exodus of ca. 1200 bce,  establishing the pattern of return to a national homeland which is so central to Jewish culture and history [5].  (Exodus outlined in red.)

In the eighth century bce, the kingdom split into the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah, from which the name “Jew” is derived. These kingdoms were subsequently conquered by the Babylonians in 722 bce and the Assyrians in 586 bce [10]. In the process, Jerusalem and the Temple were repeatedly destroyed [9] and the Jews were enslaved and scattered throughout the empires of the Middle East [Diagrams A-B]. Although some Jews returned to rebuild the Temple, many remained in exile. These dispersals have collectively been called the Diaspora (from the Greek for “scattering”) and the term now refers to a forced migration. 

A composite view of Jerusalem appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle, a history of the world from Creation to the time of the book’s  publication  in 1493.  In this illustration [9], the six major destructions of Jerusalem are depicted as a cycle of destruction and renewal: Solomon’s Temple is in flames in the left foreground, destroyed by the Babylonians; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was established a thousand years later is shown at the upper center.  It was severely damaged in 1099 but was soon rebuilt during the first Crusade. 

In the nineteenth century, the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities were depicted as analogous to the eighteenth-century division of Poland [10], while in the twentieth century, the kingdom of David and Solomon is presented as a secular rather than religious entity [8].