Masada Fortress

The Masada Fortress was conquered by Herod the Great on top of an isolated rock plateau.  It was incredible to see the ruins and imagine the difficulty in building such a structure in the middle of the dessert.  Standing on top you can easily see why Herod choose to live here.  Besides the beautiful view of the Dead Sea, and the protection that the plateau provided from enemies, it would have been quite pleasant because of the strong breeze that sweeps up the sides of the mountain. 

Standing on top of the Masada Fortress looking out over the valley with the Dead Sea in the background.

Mike & I at the foot of Masada



Historians believe these might have been large rooms used for

storing food, supplies, & weapons

 

 

 



Smaller rooms would be dwelling places for the citizens

Below is an artist's drawing of the inside of the temple





 

Inside the actual temple. To the right of the umbrella is a little room where scribes take turns writing the Torah by hand.  They write from the front and back of the scroll and must end exactly in the middle with no mistakes!  If a mistake is found they must destroy the scroll and start over.



A Jewish scribe copying the Torah by hand as it was done 2,000 years ago. 

 

 

The following is information from Wikipedia

 



Almost all historical information about Masada comes from the 1st-century Jewish Roman historian Josephus. The site was first fortified by Alexander Jannaeus in the first century BCE.^[3] Herod the Great captured it in the power-struggle that followed the death of his father Antipater.^[3] It survived the siege of the last Hasmonean king Antigonus II Mattathias, who ruled with Parthian support.^[3] In 66 CE, a group of Jewish rebels, the Sicarii, overcame the Roman garrison of Masada with the aid of a ruse.^[3] After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, additional members of the Sicarii fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountaintop.^[3]
In 73 CE, the Roman governor of Iudaea Lucius Flavius Silva headed the Roman legion X Fretensis and laid siege to Masada.^[3] The Roman legion surrounded Masada, and built a circumvallation wall and then a siege ramp against the western face of the plateau.^[3]
According to Dan Gill,^[4] geological investigations in the early 1990s confirmed earlier observations that the 375-foot (114 m) high assault ramp consisted mostly of a natural spur of bedrock. The ramp was complete in the spring of 73, after probably two to three months of siege, allowing the Romans to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram on April 16.^[5] Romans took the X Legion and a number of auxiliary units and Jewish prisoners of war, totaling some 15,000 troops in order to crush Jewish resistance at Masada. A giant siege tower with a battering ram was constructed and moved laboriously up the completed ramp. Originally, Jewish rebels on top of Masada threw stones at those building and constructing the ramp. When this plan was realized, the Romans put captured Jewish prisoners from previously conquered towns to work the ramp. The Jewish people on top of Masada stopped killing those who built the ramp, choosing not to kill their fellow Jews, even though they understood this might result in the Romans penetrating the fortress.^{[citation needed]} The walls of the fortress were breached in 73 CE.^[6] According to Josephus, when Roman troops entered the fortress, they discovered that its 960 inhabitants had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide or killed each other. Josephus wrote of two stirring speeches that the Sicari leader had made to convince his fellows to kill themselves.^[3] Only two women and five children were found alive.^[3] Josephus presumably based his narration upon the field commentaries of the Roman commanders that were accessible to him.^[7][8]


For a good read check out The Dove Keepers  by Alice Hoffman

 

It is a fiction tale of 4 women who lived on Masada during the 3-4 years the Romans were laying siege to the fortress and their story of survival.  Although it is fiction the historical connections were remarkably well kept.