The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Photo: Berthold Werner.

The archaeological archive of Israel, administered by the Israel Antiquities Authority, has digitized and uploaded all of Israel’s archaeological archives to the Internet, slated to be publicly available this month.

The archive allows visitors to view the impressive and original architectural plan for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre following renovations, British espionage maps from World War I and blueprints for buildings on the Temple Mount.

Because these documents are delicate and susceptible to decay, they were scanned individually and by hand. The documents in the online archive include texts, photographs, maps, and architectural plans.

Uploading the precious material demanded special preparation. The first group of documents, which includes tens of thousands of items from Acre and Jerusalem, mostly in English and dated between 1919 and 1948, is already available for viewing here.