Masada

Katie and I spent days 5 and 6 of her visit in the Judean desert. We climbed Masada, bathed in the Dead Sea, explored Qumran, and hiked Ein Gedi.

Masada is a desert fortress on an unusually flat-topped, 1300 foot rocky plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. Herod embellished it with a three-tiered palace on the north face and lavish bath houses. Most of what we know about Masada's history comes from 1st century historian Josephus. It was on Masada that the extremist Jewish rebels took their last stand against Rome in the Jewish war (begun 66 CE). After the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed in 70, the remaining rebels retreated to Masada. The Romans followed them, encamped below the fortress, and began to build first a ramp up to the top, and then a siege tower to attack the outer battlements with a battering ram. When the rebels realized theirs was a lost cause, they set fire to the buildings and took their lives. Much of the archaeology on Masada substantiates Josephus' story. We saw the outlines of the Roman camp, the ramp they built, and the place where they breached the walls.

Masada was occupied at least once after its defeat at the hands of the Romans. In the 5th-7th centuries, Christian monks moved in a built a Byzantine-style church there.

View of the wadi between Masada (R) and the next hill over:

Huzzah! We hiked up the snake path!

View of the Dead Sea from the top of Masada:

 Model of the buildings on top of Masada:

 People were shorter back then...

View of the hot room in one of Masada's bath houses. You can see some of the pillars that held up the floor and clay pipes embedded in the walls. A furnace heated hot air which was funneled through these to create a Roman sauna.

Some reconstructed fresco painting in Herod's hanging palace on the north face of the mesa:

An ancient dovecote.

Model of the water cisterns at Masada. Water is a serious matter in a desert fortress. It is a little difficult to see in this picture, but there were cisterns built into the cliffside. This region is subject to flash flooding, and these cisterns perfectly positioned to fill up in the case of a flash flood. Then, the water was most likely carried to the top by mules, where it was deposited into more cisterns for daily use. You can pour water on the model and watch the cisterns fill.

One of Masada's preserved mosaic floors: