JERUSALEM – 3D Timelapse – 1800 BC to 2026

Jerusalem grows in 3D on its real hills: from a walled Canaanite town above the Gihon spring to a city of over a million people. 3,800 years in 9 minutes. The City of David, Hezekiah's Tunnel, the Babylonian destruction, the Second Temple and Herod's vast platform, the Roman siege of AD 70, Aelia Capitolina, Constantine's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa, the crusaders and Saladin, Suleiman's walls, the first neighbourhoods outside the walls, 1948, 1967 and today. CHAPTERS 0:00 I. Ancient City: the first mention (c. 1800 BC) 0:20 City of David and Solomon's Temple – the tradition (c. 1000–960 BC) 0:37 The Western Hill and Hezekiah's Tunnel (8th c. – c. 700 BC) 0:51 Sennacherib's blockade (701 BC) 0:58 Babylon besieges and burns Jerusalem (588–586 BC) 1:26 II. The Temple: return from Babylon, the Second Temple (538–515 BC) 1:41 Nehemiah's wall and the Maccabees (445–164 BC) 1:54 Hasmonean city and Pompey's siege (63 BC) 2:08 Herod takes the city and rebuilds the Temple (37–20 BC) 2:31 Jesus of Nazareth (c. AD 30–33) 2:39 The revolt and the siege of Titus: the Temple burns (AD 66–70) 3:12 Aelia Capitolina (AD 130–135) 3:28 III. Holy City: new walls and Constantine's Church of the Holy Sepulchre (c. 300–335) 4:01 Justinian's Nea and the Persian siege (543–614) 4:14 Caliph Umar (637/638) 4:27 The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa (691/692) 4:43 Earthquakes and the Sepulchre destroyed (749–1033) 5:08 IV. Kingdoms and Walls: the First Crusade and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099) 5:37 Saladin (1187) 5:49 Walls torn down, the Khwarazmian sack, Mamluk Jerusalem (1219–1336) 6:10 Ottoman rule and Suleiman's walls (1516–1541) 6:29 Outside the walls: new neighbourhoods (from 1860) 6:45 The first train and the Kaiser's visit (1892–1898) 6:57 Allenby enters on foot (1917) 7:12 V. Modern City: British Mandate Jerusalem (1918–1946) 7:33 King David Hotel and the Partition Plan (1946–1947) 7:45 The war of 1948 and the divided city (1948–1966) 8:13 The Six-Day War (1967) 8:26 New districts and the barrier (1970s–2004) 8:48 Chords Bridge, light rail and Jerusalem today (2008–2026) Which city should we build next? Tell us in the comments, and share your favourite moment with a timestamp. HOW IT WAS MADE 3D built in Blender on the real terrain of the Judean hills. Up to the 19th century the city is a reconstruction: houses fill the documented extent of each period; walls, gates, temples, churches, mosques and armies are placed from archaeology, plans and written sources, and where scholars disagree we show one reading and say so on screen ("tradition", "probably", "debated"). From the 20th century on, today's building footprints rise in periods estimated from satellite built-up data. Captions about the city's status after 1967 state the geography and both positions. Every caption comes from our research dossier (about 270 sources) and was fact-checked against it. AI tools helped with research and scripting; every date was checked against the sources. Population before modern censuses is estimated (≈). Buildings are simplified: a visual reconstruction, not an exact record. SOURCES (selection) Ritmeyer · Josephus, The Jewish War · Hebrew Bible / Book of Nehemiah · Israel Antiquities Authority · Encyclopaedia Britannica · UN documents (A/RES/181, ICJ advisory opinion 2004) · Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research · Wikipedia (EN/DE) CREDITS Data Elevation: AWS Terrain Tiles (Mapzen / Linux Foundation; SRTM courtesy NASA/USGS, GMTED2010, ETOPO1). Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0, www.openstreetmap.org/copyright). Historical map data: OpenHistoricalMap contributors (CC0 1.0). Building ages estimated with WSF-Evolution © DLR (Marconcini et al. 2021, CC BY 4.0) and GHS-BUILT-S R2023A © European Union, JRC (Pesaresi & Politis 2023, doi:10.2905/9F06F36F-4B11-47EC-ABB0-4F8B7B1D72EA, CC BY 4.0). Music I. "The Ancient Legend", vitalezzz (OpenGameArt.org, CC0) II. "The Pyre" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... III. "Angevin" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... IV. "Medieval: Exploration", RandomMind (OpenGameArt.org, CC0) V. Josef Suk, Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale "St. Wenceslas", Op. 35a, Musopen String Quartet (public domain, musopen.org); Johannes Brahms, Symphony No. 2, Op. 73: IV. Allegro con spirito, Musopen Symphony / Czech National Symphony Orchestra (public domain, musopen.org) Sound effects: Mixkit (mixkit.co) and OpenGameArt.org contributors (CC0) 3D: trees from Nature Kit by Kenney (kenney.nl, CC0); terrain, houses, landmarks and armies built in Blender for this film Fonts: Cinzel, EB Garamond (SIL Open Font License)