324-638 CE - Byzantine Period/Persian Period In 324 CE, Constantine the Great, consolidates his hold on the now decayed and fragmented Roman Empire, shifting the imperial capital from Rome to the Turkish city of Constantinople. He makes Christianity the established religion of the domain. Christianity consolidates its institutions in Palestine, which is now known as the Holy Land. Byzantine era clerics and nobility, beginning with Queen Helena the mother of Constantine, make pilgrimages here and build monuments, chuches and monasteries at important Christian sites that had been destroyed or ignored by pagan Rome. About the Pictures: Plaque with a menorah carved in low relief. Found at Horvat Koshet, near Kiryat Tivon. Late Byzantine Period - beginning of the Umayyad period, 6th-8th century CE, marble. The plaque was restored in the Israel Museum Laboratories from several fragments found at the site. It was presumably part of the synagogue of this settlement. This rare crucifix from the Byzantine Period consisting of wood embedded in a bronze frame was found by archeologists outside Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate. The inch-long cross was uncovered in a fifth-century neighborhood built just outside the Old City. Ronnie Reich of the Antiquities Authority said he was unaware of any other crucifix from this period that combined both wood and metal. 8000-4000 BCE 3000-1200 BCE 1700 1200-600 BCE 587-332 BCE 520 BCE 332-63 BCE 166 BCE 63-324 CE 6-3 BCE 66 CE 68 CE 132-135 CE 135-324 CE 324-638 CE 614 CE 638-1099 CE 1099-1291 CE 1291-1917 CE 1492 1517 1886 1918-1948 1948 1950-67 1968-1988 1974 1977 1982 1993 2000