Near Bab al-Khalil on the western side of Jerusalem's walls and to the north of the King David Hotel lies the Jerusalem branch of the Rome-based Pontifical Biblical Institute that is affiliated with the Jesuit Catholic order. The Jerusalem institute is composed of a church, a library and a museum that displays rare relics dating back thousands of years.

To emphasize the sanctity of the site, a photo of Saint Ignatius of Loyola hangs on the entrance to the institute. Saint Ignatius, who was born in 1491 in the city of Azpeitia in the Basque Country, Spain, is the co-founder and first leader of the Jesuit order. He had visited Jerusalem in 1523.

Al-Monitor spoke to archaeological researcher Abeer Zayyad, who is also the former director of the Arab department at the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem. “The building housing the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem was built by the Vatican in the 19th century as a scientific and research institution affiliated with the Catholic Church. The three-story building is dedicated to teaching the Bible to students of various nationalities enrolled in the institute.”

She said, “On its first floor, the building houses a small church and a museum that contains a rare archaeological collection, dating back to the first Paleolithic period until the Islamic era. The museum is home to many artifacts discovered by the monks of the monastery who conducted archaeological excavations in the Dead Sea and the Jordan River during the 1930s. These artifacts are mostly related to the Ghassulian civilization in the region that ended at about 4000-3900 BC, and the archaeological findings date back to the Chalcolithic period.”