I have no idea how old they are, but I loved these little ornamental designs over a rather insignificant arch somewhere in what I think is the Christian Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem. There’s nothing “religious” about them. They’re just there. What I think is interesting about them is what they say about the ordinary impulse to decorate ordinary things and places, and the way this gets done with neat geometric and semi-organic shapes. The designs  are grouped together haphazardly. They look bigger in these photos than they actually are because of the zoom-lens effect, and that too says something about the way modern technologies allow one to blow things up.