Masada
Herod's royal citadel, Masada, was later the last outpost of Zealots during the Jewish Revolt. The citadel was a site of the most dramatic and symbolic act in Jewish history, where rebels committed mass suicide rather than submit to Roman capture.
The location of Masada remained unknown until 1838 when Americans E. Robinson and E. Smith viewed the rock through a telescope from Ein-Gedi. The site was first visited by the American missionary S.W. Wolcott and the English painter Tipping who was illustrating an English edition of "The Jewish War" by Josephus. Archaeological expeditions from America, France and Germany followed.
The first Israeli surveys of Masada were done in 1955-56. In 1963-65, Yigael Yadin conducted a full-scale excavation of the site, with assistance of hundreds of volunteers from Israel and abroad. They uncovered almost all the territory, and also restored many buildings.
Some of the key archaeological finds at Masada include:
- Remains of a Chalcolithic settlement (4th millennium B.C.), including plants, cloth and potsherds, were found in a small cave on the lower part of a southern cliff. Coins from the reign of Alexander Yannai were also discovered, which makes it likely that he was "Jonathan the High Priest", the founder of Masada.
- Herod's intricate water supply system was a vital survival tool in the arid climate of Masada. It consisted of a drainage system to carry rainwater to a group of cisterns in the northwestern slope of the rock.
- The entire summit of Masada was enclosed by Herod with a double wall with the inner space divided into rooms. Its circumference of 1400 meters corresponds exactly to "7 stadio" in Josephus' description. Approximately 70 rooms, 30 towers and four gates were found in the wall.
- Josephus gives a detailed account of a royal palace situated beneath the walls of the fortress on the western side facing north. Up to 1950s this was believed to be a large building on the western side of the site, but Israeli explorers discovered that the palace was actually located on the north on the edge of the precipice.
- This Northern Palace or, more correctly, royal villa, commanded a magnificent view of the surroundings as far as Ein-Gedi. It was built in three tiers, only the upper one containing the living quarters and the lower ones designed for pleasure. The walls and ceilings were decorated with frescoes, and some of them were discovered at the lower terrace in a well-preserved state.
- The Herodian buildings were later used by the Zealots as command posts and public buildings. Their decorative architectural parts were dismantled for building materials and furniture.
- Most of the Zealots were housed in the double wall and in shacks of mud and small stones. In rooms that had not been burnt by the Romans, the remains of their daily life were strewn of floors, including clothing, leather, baskets, glass, stone and bronze objects.
- In the section of the wall closest to the assault ramp hundreds of Roman ballistic stones the size of grapefruit were discovered.
- A synagogue was discovered from the time of the Second Temple, most likely built by the Zealots. It is a rectangular building, oriented toward Jerusalem, with four tiers of plastered benches along the walls and two rows of columns in the center.
- More than 700 otraca were found, mostly written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Some of them were found near the storerooms, and may have been connected with the Zealot's rationing system during the siege. Eleven small ostraca were found, different from all others, each inscribed apparently by the same hand, with a single name; one of the names is "Ben Yair". It is probable that those were the ostraca used in the casting of the lots between Ben Yair and the surviving ten people, after all the others had been killed, as Josephus describes.
- Parts of 14 biblical, apocryphal and sectarian scrolls found at Masada are the first scrolls discovered outside of caves in a dated archaeological stratum.
- One important find was a sectarian document identical with one found in Qumran, using a 364-day calendar also used by a Dead Sea Sect. This provided a proof that the Dead Sea Scrolls were dated correctly.
- Another important scroll was the original of "The wisdom of Ben-Sira", an apocryph of the 2nd century; its Greek translation was knows as "Ecclesiasticus". Since this text was not included in the Tanakh, the original Hebrew text was lost; excerpts from it were found only in 1896 in the Cairo Geniza.
- A small Byzantine chapel was constructed by monks in 5th century A.D. Once its floor had been covered by mosaic. In a small chamber, where the floor was covered with high piles of debris, a beautiful section of a mosaic floor was uncovered.
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