November 10, 2010



A view of the different levels of Harod's residential villa



We visited Masada down near the Dead Sea.  If you have never heard of it, don’t feel too bad.  But, it was the site of a fascinating story.  It was originally built by Herod the Great on a large natural isolated stone overlooking the Dead Sea south of Jerusalem.  There is some question as to whether he ever spent any time there.  Many of his palace features are still intact and are simply unbelievable.  His residential palace or villa was located on the northern side of the rock on a cliff face.  What a view!  And, how did they ever build it? You can still see some of the plaster with its original paint.  It was built between 37 and 31 BCE.



The plaster in Herod's cliff-side villa





However, sometime near the Jewish Revolt in or around 67 CE, the place, with a small garrison of Roman soldiers, was overrun by a group of Jewish zealots.  They added mikvah baths, fixed up a synagogue which was probably already there and called it home.  Of course, the Romans couldn’t have that, so a large force marched down there to take care of things.  Well, it wasn’t so easy for them.  After all, Herod’s builders had done such a fantastic job fortifying the place and preparing it for sieges.  Not only was the entire place surrounded on all sides by sheer cliff faces, but Herod had a tall wall built on top that was 12 feet thick.  Herod’s palaces were always ready for him should he show up there, with plenty of food, water and even baths that were kept cold, warm and hot (he loved feeling Roman).  These, of course, were known as frigidarium,  tepidarium and caldarium (I guess the plural are frigidaria, tepidaria and caldaria?).  There were also channels built to direct water from nearby rivers to cisterns in the cliff faces and bottoms, where the water was then hauled to giant cisterns at the top.



A view from Masada of one of the Roman encampments



So, anyway, the Romans had a tough time.  They eventually had to build an earthen ramp leading up to one of the walls, which they breached with a battering ram.  However, when they got inside the fortress, they found all the Jewish rebels dead and the place ablaze, except for the food.  They had killed themselves rather than be taken captive.  Supposedly, they wanted the Romans to see that they were prepared to survive but would rather be dead than taken by the Romans.  They hadn’t all committed suicide, but rather killed each other and then the final person was the only to commit suicide, as doing so was very frowned upon by them.  In fact, archeologists have uncovered shards of a broken vase upon which men’s names were written.  They believe there would have been a drawing to see who was going to be the one to commit suicide.

It’s a good thing that the Israelites didn’t have the same outlook on life as the Masada Jews, when the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, isn’t it?  In fact, while their conquering of Masada and fight to the bitter end is admirable, it isn’t really an ending worth celebrating, is it?  What if the defenders at the Alamo had done the same thing?  We wouldn’t have a movie about it starring John Wayne.



The really eerie thing about the place was the large crows that lived there on the cliffs.  The only place that I saw them while I was here.  They were gliding and soaring around Masada, as if guarding it.