It was the last line of defense, where completely isolated from the rest of the world, the rebellious Jews under the command of Elazar Ben-Yair confronted the powerful Tenth Roman Legion led by Flavius Silva.
Ein Gedi Nature Reserve is located 80 kilometers from Jerusalem, and 20 kilometers from it is the Masada fortress, with which one of the most heroic pages of the history of the Jewish people is connected. Masada is a powerful fortress perched on top of a huge cliff that rises near the shores of the Dead Sea.
The fortress's geographical position in a waterless desert zone, far from settlements, and natural inaccessibility made it a safe haven. The Roman historian Josephus Flavius reports that the fortress was built by the high priest Jonathan, and then King Herod strengthened it even more, erecting 37 high towers. Josephus says about it like this:
He erected a wall around the top of the mountain and built thirty-seven towers over the wall. And he erected a royal palace for himself in a fortress, on the western slope of the mountain - under a wall that closes at the top of the mountain. And everywhere in the rock he carved pools for reservoirs, thanks to which he managed to provide water to the inhabitants of the fortress … Thus, the fortress was erected by God and people to protect against the enemy who would rise on it in war …
Let's find out what happened next …
The word “mezad” or “mezada”, in the Greek pronunciation “masada”, was used to denote a fortress in general, and at the end of the Second Temple period - the name assigned to a certain fortress, are found in Scripture. Massada is a diamond-shaped rocky plateau that rises immensely over the surroundings to a height of about 450 meters above the Dead Sea (and about 50 meters above absolute sea level). The length of the Massada plateau is approx. 600 meters, maximum width - approx. 300 meters.
This is a very strong fortress, and here are its features: from all sides of a very high and wide cliff there are steep slopes that descend into such abysses that they cannot be measured. No living creature has set foot here. Only in two places is there a slight slope in the rock and there are paths going up, but they are very narrow.
Promotional video:
The slopes of the cliff are really very steep: on the east side, their height reaches 300 meters, and the height of the lowest cliff on the west side even reaches almost 100 meters.
Massada and its history are repeatedly and in detail mentioned in the world famous works of the Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus (Yosef ben-Matatiyahu, 37-100 AD), but also in the books of other ancient chroniclers. Flavius reports that the first ruler who made Massada a fortified point was the Great Cohen (high priest) Jonathan Hasmoneus, moreover, it is believed that Flavius had in mind Alexander I Jannes, king and high priest of Judea from the Hasmonean dynasty, whose Hebrew name was also Jonathan and coins from the reign of which (103 - 76 BC) were found in the fortress. Then, in 37 BC, King Herod the Great, newly appointed in the same year (by the decision of the Roman Senate), fled to Massada, pursued by the last Hasmonean king and high priest Mattathias Antigonus II (Matityahu Antigonus, who ruled from 40 to 37 AD). BC.).
King Herod (aka: in Hebrew Hordos, but in Latin Herodus) also sheltered his entire clan and 800 retinue and guards here. After some time, Herod managed, leaving his family in Massada, to slip through the barriers and sail to his Roman patrons. Meanwhile, the unrelenting blockade carried out by the Jewish king almost led the people who had taken refuge in the fortress to death from dehydration. However, at the most critical moment, the saving rains began, again filling the reservoirs arranged in Massada. Herod, who then returned from Rome, went up with his retinue to Massada and lifted the blockade from her. After these events, Herod turned Massada into a completely autonomous and exceptionally fortified castle-refuge, filling it with all kinds of palace refinement and comfort, such as, for example, a bath complex, view terraces, huge warehouses, etc.and having quartered here numerous servants and guards.
During the reign of King Herod, the fortress was surrounded by a double wall, the inner space of which was divided into casemates. There were four gates in the wall, shaped like square rooms with two entrances, paved floors, and seating along the frescoed walls.
Foreseeing the possibility of a long siege, he ordered the construction of a whole complex of food warehouses in the northern part of the rock and a large public bath next to them. To the west of the Dead Sea were two canyons: from them, using open plastered canals, water was diverted into 12 drainage systems, carved in two parallel rows in the northwest of the cliff. Of these, water was manually delivered to the top of the cliff to other cisterns.
After the death of Herod the Great, a Roman garrison was stationed in Massada, which stayed here until 66 AD, the year in which the Great Revolt against the Romans broke out (1st Jewish War). Zealot zealots led by Menachem Ben-Yehuda of Galilee broke into the fortress and killed the entire garrison. After the assassination of Menachem ben Yehuda by ideological opponents in Jerusalem, El'azar Ben-Yair, who belonged to Menachem's nephew El'azar Ben-Yair, found refuge for himself in Jerusalem by ideological opponents. Sicarii, who have entrenched themselves and actually locked themselves here, which became fatal for them in the 73rd year.
In 66, after the beginning of the Jewish War, Menachem (the son of Judah the Galilean), at the head of a detachment of Zealots, captured Masada. They beat up the Roman garrison and seized weapons that had been laid down by King Herod.
In the spring of 70, the Roman army under the command of the emperor Titus laid siege to Jerusalem, but here fierce resistance from the inhabitants of the city awaited them. The proposal for surrender was indignantly rejected by the rebels, who, with their frequent sorties, tried to interfere with the siege work of the Roman troops. The Romans had to take every meter from. fight. Only after the emperor Titus surrounded Jerusalem with a ring of trenches could his army resume attacks without hindrance. In August, the legionnaires captured the Second Jerusalem Temple, and in September they captured the entire city.
But even after the fall of Jerusalem, the last fighters for Israeli independence defended themselves with such stubborn ferocity, as if their cause had not yet been lost. The fortresses of Mahero and Masada and the castle of King Herod were still in the hands of those who resisted. The latter was simply a fortified palace and therefore was easily taken by Lucius Bas-som. But the Romans managed to take possession of the Mahero fortress not so easily, after which beatings and the sale of Jews into slavery began again.
In the 72nd year, after all of Judea had already been conquered, plundered and destroyed by the Romans, including Jerusalem, the 10th Roman Legion, led by the procurator Flavius Silva, settled around Massada and blocked it from all sides. The siege lasted for months and was hampered for Silva by the logistical difficulties of bringing food and water to her people. No less than nine thousand Jewish slaves paved roads, carried earth and dragged tree trunks to build a siege rampart, poured into the gorge from the west of the fortress. On this embankment, raised, according to Flavius, by 100 m, the Romans built a 25-meter siege tower with a powerful ram, equating it with the fortress wall, which allowed them, in the end, to loosen it and make a breach. As already indicated, the siege rampart has been perfectly preserved to this day, and along the trail,laid through it, you can climb to the fortress in the west.
On the night preceding the breakdown of the wall, El'azar Ben-Yair convinced the Zealots not to surrender at the mercy of the victor and die as free people, laying hands on themselves and on their wives and children. Josephus Flavius eloquently describes a speech full of drama, delivered to his companions by El'azar Ben-Yair, witnessed, according to Flavius, by two women and five children who hid in one of the reservoirs and then surrendered to the Romans, who rose from dawn on the plateau. A terrifying and chilling story, in its scope, perhaps, has no analogues in the world chronicle: each warrior cut the throat of his wife and children with his own hands …
Then ten performers were chosen by lot, who cut the throats of all the men - the defenders of the fortress … The total number of all those killed was about 960 people. Then they burned all the jewelry and everything of any value or usefulness, except food, so that the Romans would not think that hunger spurred them to commit suicide. Finally, one of ten, also chosen by lot, killed the rest, set fire to the fortress and fell on his sword.
So on April 15, 72, the last defenders of Masada died. Only two women with five children survived, who took refuge in one of the caves.
It is appropriate to clarify here that Judaism regards suicide as the gravest sin and, therefore, the "tactics" of killing chosen by the Zealots actually reduced the number of suicides among them to one single person. Josephus also narrates that the Roman soldiers, who finally ascended to Massada and were prepared for a fierce battle, suddenly realized that they had no one to capture and nothing to plunder (looting was a familiar and desired trophy and a reward for valor) and were amazed by the spectacle they saw. fortitude, fortitude and devotion to their ideals as the defenders of the fortress …
And, nevertheless, despite the seemingly obvious fact of unparalleled courage and heroism, in Judaism, suicide cannot be justified in any way and cannot be branded as a "brave" or "noble" act, especially since the defenders of Massada killed their wives and children, without asking their consent, violating Jewish law and this act.
Following the events described, a Roman garrison was again located in Massada for several years, then, after centuries of complete desolation, in the 5th-6th centuries. here, in the caves, several Byzantine Christian monks settled, who also arranged cells both inside and next to the destroyed buildings. They also erected a Byzantine church in Massada and stayed here for over a hundred years. With the departure of the monks, Massada again became uninhabited and has been abandoned to this day. Interest in Massada and its legendary history was renewed in modern times by two American researchers, A. Robinson and A. Smith, who in 1839 examined this archaeological site from the side of Ein Gedi, identified it with Massada and associated it with the stories of Josephus Flavius …
Masada is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In Masada, many food and weapons supplies were preserved, an elaborate water supply system, baths, modeled on the Roman ones, were arranged. The fortress was also used to store royal gold
On all sides Masada is surrounded by sheer cliffs. Only from the side of the sea a narrow so-called snake path leads up. The top of the cliff is crowned by an almost flat trapezoidal plateau, which measures approximately 600 × 300 m.
The plateau is surrounded by powerful fortress walls with a total length of 1400 m and a thickness of about 4 m in which 37 towers are arranged.
On the plateau, palaces, a synagogue, armories, pits for collecting and storing rainwater and other ancillary structures were built.
The fortress now houses the palace of King Herod, a synagogue, fragments of mosaics, water reservoirs carved into the rocks, cold and hot baths and much more.
One of the most striking finds is the synagogue. It was believed that the Jews had no need for synagogues while they had the Temple. Masada was reconstructed during the existence of the Second Temple, but a synagogue was nevertheless created in it.
In addition, a synagogue was also found in the ruins of the Gamla fortress. This proved that among the ancient Jews, the existence of synagogues did not depend on the existence of the Temple.
In 66 A. D. e. Masada was taken by the rebellious Zealots, the Roman garrison was massacred.
In 67 AD, representatives of the radical party settled in Masada, which led the uprising against the Romans, which resulted in a long Jewish war.
In 70 AD, after the capture of Jerusalem by the Roman legions, Masada became the last stronghold of the rebels. The defenders of the fortress barely numbered about 1,000 people, including women and children, but they held Masada for another 3 years.
About 9 thousand slaves led the roads and carried land for the construction of a siege wall around the fortress and sites for throwing machines and rams.
When the Romans succeeded in setting fire to the internal defensive wall, which was additionally built by the Sicarii, consisting of wooden beams, the fate of Masada was decided.
“Not wanting to surrender to the Romans, the Sicarii decided to commit suicide. A lot was thrown, ten executors of the last will were chosen, who killed all the defenders of the fortress, women and children, and then one of them, chosen by lot, killed the rest and committed suicide. The story of the massacre in the fortress was told by a woman who hid in a water reservoir and therefore survived. " Josephus Flavius, "The Jewish War."
For some time, the history of the defense of Masada was considered a legend, but a comparison of Jewish and Roman historical chronicles, including the book of Josephus Flavius "The Jewish War", and archaeological finds on the territory of the fortress, including stone tablets with names used as lots by ten executors of the last will, are convinced of the opposite.
There is also a version that when the Romans broke through the fortress wall, the defenders of the fortress set fire to all the buildings.
However, human remains and / or graves have never been found on the territory of the fortress (it is worth recalling that we are talking about a thousand people, which is quite a lot for such a relatively small area), therefore, no version has yet found sufficiently strong confirmation.
The ruins of the fortress were first discovered in 1862, while thorough excavations were carried out in 1963-65.
Since 1971, a funicular has been operating on Masada connecting the foot of the cliff with its top. You can also climb on foot to the gates of the fortress along the "snake path" winding along the eastern side of the cliff.
How to get there
1. To the East entrance to Massada from Jerusalem. We arrive in Jerusalem along highway number 1 to the entrance to the city. Then, using the road signs, we move towards the Dead Sea. After passing the intersection of a-Giv'a a-Tsorfatit (Tzomet haGiva haTzorfatit), we will follow, without turning, along a section of the highway for about 30 km and going down to the Dead Sea. At the Tzomet Beyt haArava junction, turn south and head straight for Massada. On this section of the road, we pass the kibbutz (a kibbutz is an agricultural or economic-industrial commune) Almog, KALIA, Mitspe Shalem, Ein Gedi.
2. To the Eastern entrance to Massada from the side of Arad. Arriving in Massada from the northern regions of Israel take the general direction to Be'er Sheva and, having reached the Tzomet Lehavim junction, turn east, onto highway 31, along which they travel several tens of kilometers (bypassing, mainly, Bedouin settlements, and also Tel Arad - an archaeological mound that preserves the cultural layers of the Talmudic period), until they come to the Zohar crossroads (Tzomet Zohar), directly adjacent to the Dead Sea coast. Here you should turn north and, after about 20 km, turn left at the sign for Massada.
3. From Arad to the place of light and sound performance and the siege rampart (Western entrance). Descent to the place of light and sound performance, as well as to the western passage to Massada (ascent along a short path through the siege shaft) is carried out from the side of Arad, from where specially for a highway has been laid for this purpose. On this road, already from the very entrance to Arad, there are clearly placed signs.
The central attractions of Massada
1. Fortress wall. Herod surrounded Massada with the so-called casemate (escarp) wall 1400 meters long, i.e. double walled, with a flat top floor (roof). Inside the wall, piers were placed, forming premises for the garrison (casemates), weapons and food warehouses, etc., and 7 gates were arranged in it. The only object not taken into the wall was the Northern Palace, due to the fact that, thanks to the sheer cliff, there was no way to get to it from the outside.
2. North Palace (haArmon haTzfoni). It is one of the most impressive surviving relics from the period of King Herod. This palace is one of the most luxurious of the many built by Herod, and it is described in great detail and vividly in the book of Josephus. The Northern Palace was considered the most important object of Massada. The palace has a wall that separates private apartments from public areas and premises.
Why did Herod build the main palace in this particular place? There were a number of good reasons for this:
A. This side of Massada is not exposed to the sun.
B. This sector of the fortress is its most strategic element, because reservoirs are located under the Palace.
Q. This is the northern end of the mountain, even on the hottest days there is a breeze.
However, the builders of the palace would have encountered serious difficulties in its construction in such a topographically narrow place of Massada, if the architects of Herod had not proposed a very original solution to the task assigned to them. The palace was erected in three tiers, but with a breakdown into three rocky levels with a total 30-meter height spread. The upper tier is located at the top of the cliff, the middle one is at a height of 18 meters below the upper one, and the lower one is 12 meters below the middle one. In the upper tier was the actual entrance to the Northern Palace. It housed rooms for guards, sleeping rooms, a central hall (front or reception hall) and a semicircular panoramic balcony-terrace. From here, an overview of the lower levels of the Palace opens, as well as a view of the Tseelim, Mishmar and Haver streams. A Roman road is also visible from the balcony,which connected the sources of the Zeelim stream with the camps of the Romans.
An internal staircase leads from the area adjacent to the bath complex to the middle tier. Going down it, we pass an underground reservoir, as well as a step carved in the rock, which served for the inhabitants of the Palace as a mikvah (a pool for ritual ablution) and reach a flat space, apparently a round hall, surrounded by two rows of columns around the perimeter, of which only grounds. To the south, under the rock wall, there are flights of stairs and additional rooms. From here we go down to the lower tier, in which there was a rectangular hall (hall) framed by columns and painted with frescoes. On the east side, in the basement, a typical Roman-style bath complex was discovered. Outside there is a tub for washing the feet, and in the interior there are two pools, one for cold and the other for hot water.
To the south of the territory of the Northern Palace, in the same place near the wall of the baths, on the site that served as a gathering place for the rebels, eleven clay shards (ostracons) were found, each containing only one name, inscribed in one handwriting and one ink. One of the names is Ben-Yair, the name of the leader of the defenders of Massada. It is possible that these are the very fatal ostracons that were used for the drawing of lots by the ten last performers of the oath. In any case, this was the expert opinion of prof. Yigal Yadin, whose excavations and research, in fact, opened Massada for visiting the general public …
3. Western Palace (haArmon haMaaravi). The largest building on the territory of Massada, as one would expect, was also erected by Herod I the Great. Its area is about 4 thousand square meters. m and consists of the remains of living quarters, a reception hall, mosaic bathing rooms, toilets (royal!), workshops and storage facilities.
4. Food warehouses. About 15 separate warehouses in Massada were built, and some of them have undergone a solid restoration. The rest of the warehouses were left in a pre-restoration state, awaiting a possible restoration by the hands of our descendants. The Massada warehouses were mainly used to store wine, oil, flour and ammunition.
5. Mikvah. The pool for ritual ablution, located in the eastern part of the plateau, was built according to all the rules of the Halakha (highly demanding Jewish religious law). Compliance with Halakha was established by one of the most prominent Hasidic rabbis, our contemporary.
6. Synagogue. This is one of the oldest synagogues in the world, and comparable to it in antiquity was found only in Gamla, in the Golan Heights. Prior to these discoveries, it was believed that the Jews had no need for synagogues as long as they had the Temple. But the confirmed fact of the construction of synagogues that existed before the destruction of the Second Temple (Titus in 70 AD) proves that the ancient Jews used synagogues regardless of the existence of the Temple.
The siege stationing of the Romans at Massada
Along with intractable fortifications of natural origin - especially steep slopes and sheer rocky cliffs that perfectly replaced the fortress walls, King Herod erected a man-made wall 5 meters high around the top of the plateau and about 1400 meters in the perimeter. The fortress wall, as already indicated, itself consisted of two parallel walls: an outer one, 1.4 m thick and an inner one, 1 m thick. The gap between the walls was about 4 meters, and this whole space with a total area of about 9 These dunams were covered with a powerful ceiling, and inside they were divided by walls into numerous rooms. Every 40 meters of the walls, watchtowers were erected, between which sentries patrolled along the wall covering. A gate was erected opposite each of the four paths that climbed the mountain:The Eastern Gate - against the "Serpentine Path" (Shvil ha-Nahash), the Western Gate - against the Western Path (Shvil ha-Maarav), the North Gate - against the Water Path (Shvil ha-Maim) and the Cave Gate (Shaar ha-Mearot) - against the South Trail (Shvil a-Darom).
Thanks to such a multifaceted fortification, the Romans were stuck under Massada for many months until they managed to break through the wall, and only in the fall of 73 AD. they managed to defeat an extremely small squad of Zealots. To do this, they had to set up at least 8 siege camps around Massada. The siege was commanded by the Roman governor Flavius Silva, who had at his disposal about 10 to 15 thousand people. Starting the blockade, the Romans surrounded the entire mountain with a siege wall about 5 km long. In the last stages of the siege, the Romans also erected a grandiose siege rampart against the western fortress wall. The siege rampart was built in alternating layers of trees and soil layers delivered from the nearby Zeelim Creek.
While the Romans were building the rampart, the Zealots did everything in their power to prevent their engineering design, turning it into a nightmare. Arrows and sling stones were constantly falling on the Romans, and huge stone rounds rolled from the wall, which forced the besiegers to work with one hand and squeeze the shield handle with the other. However, despite fierce resistance, the rampart was completed, a siege tower with a battering ram was built on it, and the wall in the western part was finally breached. However, the story did not end there: the Zealots did not even think to surrender, but under the guise of the Roman initiative behind the rammed wall they managed to build a second - even more powerful - of two parallel rows of logs, the space between which was filled with earth.
The material for this fortification was the dismantled wooden roofs of the palaces, the overlapping of the scarp wall and other wooden elements of the Massada's structures. The paradox was that in this makeshift wall the Romans could not break through, because a ram, designed to destroy stone walls, in a soft material just … got stuck! But the Romans found an operational solution to this surprise: they threw torches and incendiary arrows on the wooden frame, the base caught fire and began to crumble, and the ground filling crumbled, which predetermined the further fate of the defenders of Massada.