The first volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae covers the inscriptions of Jerusalem from the time of Alexander to the Arabs conquest, in all the languages used for inscriptions during those times: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Armenian. The approximately 1,100 texts have been arranged in categories based on three epochs: up to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, to the beginning of the 4th century, and to the end of Byzantine rule in the 7th century.

In Roman and Byzantine times, pilgrims, Roman soldiers and merchants landed on the west coast and headed to Jerusalem. From 1983 to 1989 the most likely routes were surveyedby land and from the air, and a gazetteer of sites and milestones was created. Literary evidence from all periods was collected to trace the roads' courses, and the problems of marrying literary with material evidence are considered.