Antique & Vintage Postcards

Framed by three graceful Crusader-era stone arches, a panorama of the Mount of Olives unfolds in warm Mediterranean light on the cover of this colour souvenir leporello from Jerusalem when the holy city still lay within the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan — before June 1967 changed everything. The bold red cursive "Jerusalem" title and the Jerusalem Cross emblem signal the devotional souvenir market that catered to the steady stream of Christian pilgrims who travelled to the Old City and its surrounds throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Pull out the accordion strip and a cascade of colour photographs reveals sacred sites: the Basilica of the Agony (Gethsemane) with its glittering mosaic façade, the ornate interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and further views of Mount Zion and the Kidron Valley — each captioned in both Arabic and English, reflecting the bilingual administrative culture of Jordanian Jerusalem. The reverse of the booklet carries a publisher's address consistent with Jordanian-era souvenir printers active before 1967, making this a historically specific document of a city whose political geography was about to be transformed irrevocably.