Colorful and Shimmering Beauty. The art of decorative glazed tiles was introduced to Jerusalem in the mid 16th century, during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Ceramic tiles were installed at that time to replace the original exterior mosaics of the Dome of the Rock. Restorations of these tiles took place in the 19th century. After the First World War, the British Administration sought to repair the thousands of tiles which had deteriorated over time, and brought to Jerusalem Armenian artists and artisans for this purpose, but the repairs didn’t materialize . In the mid 1960s the Jordanian authorities brought Turkish artisans, who installed new tiles.