Arch of Titus

The Arch of Titus stands on the Via Sacra at the edge of the Roman Forum. It was dedicated by "the Senate and People of Rome to the deified Titus" soon after his death in 81, under his brother Domitian. Inside the passage one marble relief shows Titus in his triumphal chariot crowned by Victory; the other shows soldiers in laurel wreaths carrying the spoils of the Temple through a gate: the seven-branched menorah, the table of the showbread and silver trumpets. In 2012 researchers found traces of yellow ochre on the menorah, suggesting it was once painted gold.

It is one of the very few images of the Temple vessels made by people who saw them. For centuries Roman Jews avoided walking beneath the arch; after the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the community gathered there and walked through it as a sign that the people of Israel lived on. The arch's menorah became the model for the emblem of the State of Israel, adopted in 1949.