The Dead Sea - February 1, part 4

The Biblical name for the Dead Sea was Salt Sea. The average salt concentration is 28-31 percent (8 times greater than those of the oceans). The Dead Sea is approximately 1300 feet below sea level and is the lowest spot on earth (above water). The northern bay of the Dead Sea is nearly 2300 feet deep, but the southern end is very shallow. The lake itself is 47 miles long and about 10 miles wide at its maximum. The Golan Heights can be seen from here.

Due to the density of solids and chemicals in the water, the human body easily floats on the surface. Precautions about going into the water were well posted on the site.


Today the Dead Sea is valued for its potash which is used in fertilizers and soap. It is also a great resort area. Some people cover themselves with the mud from the Dead Sea. Supposedly it keeps the body youthful. The man in the picture had just finished covering his wife, son, daughter, and himself. After doing so they then sat in the sun, almost as if to let the mud bake into the skin. However, it was cool, so their skin naturally absorbed the minerals. I must admit, the mud made my feet feel really, really good. Not just this day, but for the next couple of days. Perhaps I should have purchased some bags of the mud - yes, it was for sale.


The Jordan River empties into the Dead Sea. Sadly, the Dead Sea shoreline is receding by 5 feet per year. In part this is due to less and less water emptying from the Jordan River into the Dead Sea. There is some talk of one day pumping water from the Red Sea into the Dead Sea. In the following picture you can see where the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea.


Our guide told us the story of the old fisherman who told someone he had caught a fish in the Dead Sea. “No way,” said the man – “Nothing lives in the Dead Sea.” The fisherman said, “Give me $10 and I’ll show you the fish I caught.” The man dug deep into his pocket and said, “Show me.” As they stood in the waters of the Dead Sea, the fisherman said, “Look at yourself.” I just caught YOU.” I suppose this gives new meaning to "I will make you fishers of men [people]."

While at the Dead Sea we visited the "Lowest Bar in the World."


Some friends had told me to expect the Dead Sea to "smell" and that the water would feel "slimy." I found the exact opposite to be true. There was no foul odor and the water felt soft. Perhaps it has to do with the time of year. It was a beautiful day, a little cool to be in the water. While at the dead Sea we heard the story of Ezekiel’s vision from Ezekiel 47:1-12 (The prophet’s guide describes to him the course of the river beyond the limit of their short excursion. Leaving the temple’s east side, the waters drop through the rough country east of Jerusalem into the Arabah, the great rift valley through which the Jordan flows. This new river flows into the Dead Sea, the large salt lake more than a thousand feet below sea level, whose briny waters can support no life. Craigie, P. C. (2001, c1983). Ezekiel. The Daily study Bible series (312). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.)

We then ventured back to the bus where the trip back to the hotel would take us from 1300 feet below sea level to 3000 feet above sea level. I can only begin to imagine what it was like to walk this distance.The following pictures were taken from the bus as we left the Dead Sea and headed towards Jerusalem.

Qumran: February 1, part 3

Qumran is noted for the Dead Sea Scrolls which were discovered in 1947. Due to the climate, manuscripts written on parchment and papyrus survived through the centuries. The Scrolls are a collection of about 600 Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts discovered near Qumran. They include among many different writings, two of the oldest known copies of the Book of Isaiah, almost wholly intact; and fragments of every book in the Old Testament except the book of Esther. Qumran is located 9 miles south of Jericho and less than a mile west of the Dead Sea. Stories told from this site were from Luke 1:67-80 – The prophecy of Zechariah and Luke 4:1-13 - The Temptation of Jesus.

I remember visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. The exhibition Scrolls From the Dead Sea: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship were amazing. In particular I was taken back by the small pieces of parchment that many were painfully piecing together. A lot of interesting information can be read on the following site: http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/intro.html

There is such a wealth of information about the Dead sea Scrolls. Chuck Norville, a member of Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church is our local dead Sea Scrolls scholar. I suggest you talk with him if you have some in depth questions.

When you see the location of the cave, high high it is and how remote it is on a ledge, it is indeed divine providence that they were discovered by a young boy. The following pictures are gradually bring you closer and closer to the opening of the cave where the jars were located.




For now, the following from http://mosaic.lk.net/g-qumran.html should wet your appetite.

The Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1947 two Bedouin shepherds accidentally came across a clay jar in a cave near Khirbet Qumran that contained seven parchment scrolls. The scrolls came into the hands of dealers in antiquities who offered them to scholars. The first scholar to recognize their antiquity was E.L. Sukenik, who succeeded in acquiring three of them for the Hebrew University. Between 1948 and 1950 he published specimens of them, his "editio princeps" appearing posthumously in 1955. The four other scrolls were smuggled to the United States, where three of them were published in 1950-51. Later they were offered for sale (in a usual newspaper ad, five lines long, under "Miscellaneous for sale). Yigael Yadin, the son of E.L. Sukenik and also an outstanding archaeologist, succeeded in buying them and bringing back to Israel. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem constructed a special site for exhibiting the scrolls - the Shrine of the Book (opened in 1965). Strict atmospheric conditions are observed there to minimize the possible damage to the scrolls.

In the meantime a group of scholars under the leadership of R. de Vaux began to search and excavate the cave where the first scrolls were found, as well as some 40 caves in its vicinity. Many scrolls and thousands of fragments were found in 11 caves. Y. Yadin has acquired several important items from them. Due to difficulties in deciphering, the material it was published very slowly. Most of the manuscripts arrived to the Rockfeller Museum in Jerusalem, and became available to to Israel scholars after the Six-Day War in Jerusalem.

The Qumran manuscripts were mostly written on parchment, some on papyrus. They are dated by the closing period of the Second Temple and assumed to be a part of the library belonging to a community from Qumran, known also as a "Dead Sea Sect" . In some caves the manuscripts were carefully placed in covered cylindrical jars, whereas in other ones they appear to have been dumped in haste. In a cave that yielded the greatest amount of documents, the storage conditions were the worst, and the manuscripts disintegrated into tens of thousands of fragments, which had to be pieced together with the utmost patience and care.

The news of the discovery of the first scrolls in 1947 aroused intense interest throughout the world and considerable controversy, especially with regard to their dating. The largest manuscript (the complete Isaiah Scroll in Hebrew, 7m. long) was authoritatively dated by around 100 BCE. Some scholars claimed that the scrolls belonged to a much later date and have no scientific importance. However, this was proved wrong when similar materials were discovered at Masada, in the archaeological stratum dated not later than 73 CE.

The documents contain over 100 copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible, most of which survived only as fragments. Out of 24 books all except the Book of Ester are represented. Fragments of Septuagint text have been also identified, some of them evidently the oldest documents of this kind.

A further contribution to the biblical material from Qumran is made by the commentaries on various books. Since the biblical text is quoted in them phrase by phrase before the comment is appended, they provide important evidence for the text of the Hebrew Bible at the end of the Second Temple time.

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, three variants of the Hebrew Bible texts were known: the "proto-masoretic" type (one that was a base for a later canonized text), the type apparently underlying the Septuagint, and the one close to Samaritan Bible. Not only texts belonging to all three types were found in Qumran, but texts of types unknown before, as well as texts of mixed types.

Several important apocryphal documents in Hebrew and Aramaic were found, some of them previously unknown.

Certain manuscripts apparently describe the life of Qumran community: the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus Document, the Thanksgiving Psalms, and the War scroll. They tell about the community's origin and history, its rules of life, and expectations for the dawn of new age.


The Dead Sea Sect
The community to which the Dead Sea Scrolls apparently belonged occupied Qumran around 130 BCE to 70 CE, and possibly lived also in other places in the region. The name "Dead Sea Sect" was given to it because the main knowledge of the sect derives from these manuscripts.

The sect was an extremist offshot of the Jewish apocalyptic movement, whose basic doctrine was the expectation of the soon end of days. When it comes, the wicked would be destroyed, and Israel freed from the yoke of the nations. Before this, God would raise for Himself a community of elect who were destined to be saved from the divine visitation, and who were the nucleus of the society of the future.

The Dead Sea Sect carried these views to extremes specific to itself. They believed that God had decreed not only the end but also the division of mankind into two antagonistic camps called "the sons of light and the sons of darkness", lead by superhuman "prince of light" and "angel of darkness" respectively. Reference is also made to "the spirit of truth" and "the spirit of perverseness" which are given to mankind. Of these, each person receives his portion, in accordance with which he is either righteous or wicked. Between these two categories God has set "eternal enmity" which would cease only in the end of days, with the destruction of the spirit of perversion and the purification of the righteous from its influence. Then "the sons of the spirit of truth" would receive their reward.

The bulk of mankind was immersed in evil and liable to suffer divine visitation. To avoid this destiny, members of the sect chose to go to the wilderness and to conduct there a strict way of life in a zealous preparation for future reward. The members of the sect regarded themselves as "an eternal planting", and lived in readiness for the advent of the end of days, when God would raise up for Himself the future Human society, in which they would be "leaders and princes".

The members of the sect may have had several forms of organization. Two of them are described in documents known as the Manual of Discipline and the Damascus Document. The Manual of Discipline called for a full communal life: "they shall eat communally, and bless communally, and take counsel communally". The document does not deal with an event of anyone being born, and the community was presumably a celibate male one. The community strictly observed the laws of ritual purity, regarded all non-members as ritually unclean, and insisted on "obedience from he lower to the higher". For this purpose there was a list of members according to their gradings that was drawn anew every year. The members of the sect were "volunteers" who joined its ranks of their own free will. Offenses against internal discipline were punished, in accordance with the special code, by temporary exclusion.

Due to the Damascus document, however, another form of organization also existed, allowing private property, women and children, and organization as a whole was looser.

The sect followed its own interpretation of traditional Judaism which had at least one clear peculiarity: it stated that a calendar of 364 days had to be adopted. They believed to be the only people to know the exact order of the planets and therefore the right calendar. The Temple service was regarded as obligatory, but the sect dissociated itself from the contemporary Temple which its priests, according to them, has defied. In the future the sect would conduct the Temple service in a fitting matter; until that time it exhibited a certain tendency to regard its organization and life as having a religious significance equal to that of the sacrificial service.

The history of the sect and the development of its ideas are unknown. However, some details about its founder are known from documents. He is known as "the teacher of Righteousness", and figures both as the spiritual leader who guides his followers in the path of truth and as the social leader who contends with the ruler in Judea, "the Wicked Priest" (the apparent reference to one of the Hasmonean kings). The Damascus Document states that before the advent of the Teacher of Righteousness there existed a group whose members were "for 20 years like blind men groping their way at noon", until god raised for them the Teaches "to guide in the way of His heart".

En Gedi: February 1, part 2

En Gedi is the largest oasis along the western shore of the Dead Sea. It is actually the name of a spring which flows from a height of 656 feet above the Dead Sea.

In the Bible, the wasteland near the spring where David sought refuge from Saul is called "the wilderness of En-Gedi" and the enclosed camps at the top of the mountains, the "strongholds of En-Gedi." In the area are numerous caves for shelter and the Bible tells us it was here that King David found refuge from Saul (1 Sam 23:29). Engedi was also where David spared Saul’s life, demonstrating his mercy, compassion, and obedience to God’s will (1 Samuel 24; 26).

Ammon, Moab, and Edom invaded Judah through En Gedi at the time of Jehoshaphat’s reign, ascending to the hill country of Judah by way of "the ascent of Ziz" (2 Chr 20:16), a route that passed near En Gedi.

In yet another reference in the Song of Solomon, the speaker uses descriptions of the flora and fauna of En Gedi to depict the beauty of his lover(1:14). At En Gedi we heard the story of David sparing Saul's life from 1 Samuel 24:1-22 and the stories about Jesus in the wilderness and John the Baptist.

The area is also an educational center for Judean field studies.


Off in the background were a large number of children who appeared to be on a field trip. Also look carefully and you will see a waterfall - left side of the picture. There were several caves observed in the mountain and the children have been inside one of them.



An Israeli guard was visible as we walked around this oasis.


En Gedi is also known as the place of the wild goats, the ibex. For me ibex became the place of the elusive goat. When the ibex was on one side of the bus, I was on the other side. As I moved to where they were, they moved to the other side of the bus. When I finally saw one, it moved before I could take a picture. So, here is the picture of a wild goat from the Internet - this one could not elude me!



The view of the mountains and the Dead Sea, the latter being our last stop for the day, is magnificent. The Dead Sea looks so blue and from a distance one would never suspect absolutely nothing lives in this body of water.




As we prepared to leave, I captured a picture of the oasis here at En Gedi against the site we had been previously, the mountainous area near Masada.


Next stop for the day is Qumran where the dead Sea scrolls were found.

A New Day Awaits Us: Masada - February 1, part 1

Today we will travel to Herod’s ancient fortress of Masada, built high atop a mountain on the edge of the Dead Sea where we will hear the moving and tragic story of Jewish patriots who resisted Romans during a long siege. The name Masada is derived from the Hebrew word "metzude", which means "the mountain castle" or the "stronghold."

We began with our regular routine: wake up call at 6 AM, breakfast around 7 AM and on the bus, ready to go, by 8 AM. Our group is really responsive to the schedule and it’s been great not to have to always being waiting on someone arriving 5 minutes or so late.

As we left Jerusalem we were at an elevation of 3000 feet. By the end of the day, when we arrive at the Dead Sea we will be 1200 feet below sea level. It will be a day of “ear-popping” as we travel from above sea level to below sea level and back. Once again the weather today is great – actually my kind of weather with a high, in this desert region, of 70 degrees with a breeze. I love it!


How does one get to the top of the great mesa known as Masada? Either walking a very steep path or by taking a cable car. We took the cable car and not the "Snake path".


Note: The picture showing the cable car dangling high in the air is from the Internet.




I found a really great picture of the cable car and the walking path up the mountain - hope you take a look at it. Be sure to move the cursor around and you will experience an incredible view. Be careful - move the cursor too abruptly and you may find yourself upside down. ENJOY! http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/middle-east/dead-sea/israel/masada/snake-path/sphere-flash.html

Many books have been written and several movies have been released about the story of Masada. Masada is a huge mesa on the western shore of the Dead Sea and rises 820 feet above the valleys. It was used as a stronghold between 143 BCE and 73 CE. Herod the Great made it a monument during his tremendous building fervor. Masada is best known because a band of rebellious Jews held it during the first revolt against Rome (66-73 CE). After a long struggle to recapture the fortress, the 10th Roman Legion built an enormous siege ramp and finally broke through the walls to the resisting Jews. To their surprise, the bodies of over 900 men, women, and children were found dead; the Jews chose to take their own lives rather than be taken prisoner by the Romans.

The information about Masada is vast. Only when I read some of the info on the Internet does part of all we heard begin to come together. In an effort to simplify information about the site, location, and history, the following information that is italicized is taken from the websites http://www.ancientsandals.com/overviews/masada.htm and http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Masada1.html

A unique "mesa" on the eastern slopes of the Judean Desert, Masada rises 1,440 feet above the western shore of the Dead Sea. It is located fourteen miles north of the southern end of the sea and eleven miles south of Engedi.

Masada lies in an arid region that lacks a permanent water supply. In spite of this, during the zenith of Masada’s history, more water was stored on this fortified mountain than on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Herod the Great built a water system by installing dams in the nearby wadis (valleys) to divert the winter rains into channels that directed the water into cisterns built in the northwest side of the cliff. From there, slaves carried the water to the upper reservoir.

The summit of Masada is virtually flat. Its surface area of 2130 feet (710 yards) by 984 feet (328 yards) provides sufficient space to sustain a thriving community.
Two routes provide access to the top of the mountain. On the east side, the "snake path," with its modern hand-cut steps, ascends over one thousand feet from the desert floor. This was the only approach in David's day. The 328-foot Roman ramp on the western side was built by Jewish forced labor during the Roman siege of A.D. 70-73.

King Herod built two elaborate palaces on Masada. The "hanging palace," on the northern end of the summit, extended down the promontory of the mountain on three levels. The lowest level is 115 feet from the top. Winding staircases provided access to each level. The other larger palace was located on the western side of the mountain.

During Herod’s occupation of the site, a casemate wall was erected around the top of the mesa and towers were positioned along the more vulnerable parts of the wall. In addition, one lookout station was placed in the center of the community from which any area of the hilltop could be monitored.

On the east the rock falls in a sheer drop of about 450 meters to the Dead Sea (the lowest point on earth, some 400 m. below sea level) and in the west it stands about 100 meters above the surrounding terrain. The natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult.

The only written source about Masada is Josephus Flavius’ The Jewish War. Born Joseph ben Matityahu of a priestly family, he was a young leader at the outbreak of the Great Jewish Rebellion against Rome (66 CE) when he was appointed governor of Galilee. He managed to survive the suicide pact of the last defenders of Jodfat and surrendered to Vespasian (who shortly thereafter was proclaimed emperor) – events he described in detail. Calling himself Josephus Flavius, he became a Roman citizen and a successful historian. Moral judgment aside, his accounts have been proved largely accurate.

According to Josephus Flavius, Herod the Great built the fortress of Masada between 37 and 31 BCE. Herod, an Idumean, had been made King of Judea by his Roman overlords and was hated by his Jewish subjects. Herod, the master builder, “furnished this fortress as a refuge for himself.” It included a casemate wall around the plateau, storehouses, large cisterns ingeniously filled with rainwater, barracks, palaces and an armory.

Some 75 years after Herod’s death, at the beginning of the Revolt of the Jews against the Romans in 66 CE, a group of Jewish rebels overcame the Roman garrison of Masada. After the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple (70 CE) they were joined by zealots and their families who had fled from Jerusalem. With Masada as their base, they raided and harassed the Romans for two years. Then, in 73 CE, the Roman governor Flavius Silva marched against Masada with the Tenth Legion, auxiliary units and thousands of Jewish prisoners-of-war. The Romans established camps at the base of Masada, laid siege to it and built a circumvallation wall. They then constructed a rampart of thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth against the western approaches of the fortress and, in the spring of the year 74 CE, moved a battering ram up the ramp and breached the wall of the fortress.

Josephus Flavius dramatically recounts the story told him by two surviving women. The defenders – almost one thousand men, women and children – led by Eleazar ben Ya’ir, decided to burn the fortress and end their own lives, rather than be taken alive. “And so met (the Romans) with the multitude of the slain, but could take no pleasure in the fact, though it were done to their enemies. Nor could they do other than wonder at the courage of their resolution, and at the immovable contempt of death which so great a number of them had shown, when they went through with such an action as that was.”

The Zealots cast lots to choose 10 men to kill the remainder. They then chose among themselves the one man who would kill the survivors. That last Jew then killed himself.

The heroic story of Masada and its dramatic end attracted many explorers to the Judean desert in attempts to locate the remains of the fortress. The site was identified in 1842, but intensive excavations took place only in 1963-65, with the help of hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers from Israel and from many foreign countries, eager to participate in this exciting archeological venture. To them and to Israelis, Masada symbolizes the determination of the Jewish people to be free in its own land. The valor of the Jewish zealots residing on Masada during the Roman siege is celebrated as the supreme example of self-sacrifice for the preservation of the nation of Israel. Today, when the recruits of the Israel Armored Corps take their oath of allegiance, they do so on Masada to remind each generation of the price their forefathers paid for their nation. They cry: "Masada shall not fall again!" .

A few pictures:

A model of Masada that shows Herod's Palace


Overlooking the eastern cliff side of Masada are the three levels of the Northern Palace. The view is incredible and is cooled by a breeze.


Note the diamond shaped area - this is the Roman encampment.



Off in the distance is the Dead Sea and the mountainous strip of land known as Moab. Today, the land is known as Jordan In ancient times, this area was home to the kingdom of the Moabites, a people often in conflict with their Israelite neighbors to the west.


Again a summary from the Internet about the area: Biblical Narrative (through the conquest by Israel) http://www.crystalinks.com/moab.html

The conflict between the Israelites and the Moabites is expressed in the biblical narrative describing the Moabites' incestuous origins. According to the story, Moab was the son of Lot, through his eldest daughter, with whom he had a child after the destruction of Sodom. The Bible then explains the etymology of Moab as meaning "of his father". Nevertheless, there was considerable interchange between the two peoples, and the Bible in the Book of Ruth traces King David's lineage to a Moabite woman.

According to Genesis xix. 30-38, Moab was the son of Abraham's nephew Lot by his elder daughter, while Ben Ammi was Moab's half-brother by a similar union of Lot with his younger child. The close ethnological affinity of Moab and Ammon which is thus attested (comp. also Judges iii. 13; II Chronicles xx. 22; Isa. xi. 14; Jer. xxvi. 21) is confirmed by their subsequent history, while their kinship with the Israelites is equally certain, and is borne out by the linguistic evidence of the Moabite Stone. They are also mentioned in close connection with the Amalekites (Judges iii. 13), the inhabitants of Mount Seir (II Chron. xx. 22; Ezek. xxv. 8), the Edomites (Ex. xv. 15; Ps. lx. 10 [A. V. 8]; Isa. xi. 14; Jer. xxv. 21), the Canaanites (Ex. xv. 15), the Sethites (Num. xxiv. 17), and the Philistines (Psalms lx. 10 [A. V. 8]; Isa. xi. 14). The story of Moab's incestuous conception may be intended to relegate the Moabites to a lesser status than that of the Israelites.

The Moabites first inhabited the rich highlands at the eastern side of the chasm of the Dead Sea, extending as far north as the mountain of Gilead, from which country they expelled the Emim, the original inhabitants, (Deuteronomy 2:11) but they themselves were afterward driven southward by warlike tribes of Amorites, who had crossed the river Jordan. These Amorites, described in the Bible as being ruled by King Sihon, confined the Moabites to the country south of the river Arnon, which formed their northern boundary. (Numbers 21:13; Judges 11:18).

The Israelites, in entering the promised land, did not pass through the Moabites, (Judges 11:18) but conquered Sihon's kingdom and his capital at Heshbon. After the conquest of Canaan the relations of Moab with Israel were of a mixed character, sometimes warlike and sometimes peaceable. With the tribe of Benjamin they had at least one severe struggle, in union with their kindred the Ammonites and the Amalekites. (Judges 3:12-30) The Benjaminite shofet Ehud ben Gera assasinated the Moabite king Eglon and led an Israelite army against the Moabites at a ford of the Jordan river, killing many of them.

The story of Ruth, on the other hand, testifies to the existence of a friendly intercourse between Moab and Bethlehem, one of the towns of the tribe of Judah. By his descent from Ruth, David may be said to have had Moabite blood in his veins. He committed his parents to the protection of the king of Moab (who may have been his kinsman), when hard pressed by King Saul. (1 Samuel 22:3,4) But here all friendly relations stop forever. The next time the name is mentioned is in the account of David's war, who made the Moabites tributary (2 Samuel 8:2; 1 Chronicles 18:2). Moab may have been under the rule of an Israelite governor during this period; among the exiles who returned to Judea from Babylonia were a clan descended from Pahath-Moab, whose name means "ruler of Moab".The capital of Moab was Kir-Hareshet (modern day Kerak).


In a hot and dry area, a top the mes, collecting and keeping a water supply was a challenge and a dire necessity. An elaborate cistern system was developed. The sign to learn how the water was stored. Since it's too small to read from the picture, I have written it out for you to read. As you read it, think about the intense labor that went into this system.

WATER AT MASADA
“At each spot used for habitation, both on the summit and about the palace, as also before the wall, he had cut out in the rock numerous large tanks, as reservoirs for water, thus procuring a supply as ample as where springs are available. –Josephus Flavius

The solution of the water problem in the desert fortress is undoubtedly one of the wonders of Masada. In order to survive on the mountain, Herod quarried numerous cisterns on the summit and the northwestern slope. Rainwater that flowed in the floods in the nearby streams was stored here. The water was collected by a system of dams and two aquaducts, parts which can be seen to this day. Two rows of cisterns were dug in the slope, eight in the upper row and four in the lower, that contained a total of 40,000 cubic meters of water. From the cisterns two paths lead up to the mountain, one from the upper row to the West Gate in the northwest of the mountain and the other from the lower row to the Snake Path Gate in the east. Convoys of animals brought the water up to Masada along the paths. When they reached the summit, the water was poured into a system of channels leading into the cisterns throughout the mountain.

But a lover of life like Herod could not be content merely with drinking water. The water planning of Masada also included attention to hygiene and recreation, as we can see the bathhouses and the swimming pool located in the southern part of the mountain.

Near the sign is a model of the elaborate system. Our guide, Louie, pours some water into system to demonstrate the flow of the water. From out of nowhere appeared a very thirst blackbird who quickly drank his fill of water.



Other pictures of the system follow:



From the site of the bathhouses:




Location of the synagogue



The area of the columbarium:



Part of a bar mitzvah celebration - the boys seemingly were having a lot of fun chasing each other during the times when they weren't being seriou.






The sign at the Breaching Spot

THE BREACHING POINT
Here the Siege of Masada ended. The ramp that the Romans had built up to the summit of the mountain reached to below this point. At the top of the ramp rose the siege tower, and in it was the battering ram with which the Romans assaulted the casemate wall. However, the rebels had built a wall of earth and wood, against which the battering ram was ineffective.

“Obviously this, Silva, thinking it easier to destroy this wall by fire, a north wind which blew in the faces of the Romans caused them alarm; for diverting the flame from above, it drove against them…Then suddenly the wind veering, as if by divine providence, to the south and blowing with full force in the opposite direction, wafted and flung the flames against the wall, which now through and through was ablaze.” -Josephus Flavius

When night fell, and it was clear that the situation was hopeless and that the Romans would break in at dawn, Eleazar Ben Ya”ir assembled his followers and called for mass suicide:

“The romans expecting further opposition…were at a loss to conjecture what had happened….Here encountering the mass of the slain, instead of exulting as over enemies, they admired the nobility of their resolve and the contempt of death displayed by so many in carrying it, unwavering, into execution. .” -Josephus Flavius

The excavation here uncovered ballista balls and arrowheads, numerous slingshots and signs of burning, evidence of the battle that raged at this spot.



And now, you may just want to watch the movie, MASADA. I know I do.