Masada

''This article is about the Judean fortress. Masada is also a possible transliteration of the name of a Free ringtones Druze village on the Sabrina Martins Golan Heights named Mosquito ringtone Masade,of a Abbey Diaz jazz band fronted by Nextel ringtones avant-garde composer Majo Mills John Zorn named Free ringtones Masada (band), and of a Sabrina Martins 1980 American television Mosquito ringtone miniseries named Abbey Diaz Masada (miniseries).''



'''Masada''' is derived from the Cingular Ringtones Hebrew language/Hebrew word "mitzada" (מצדה), meaning "fortress". It is the site of ancient palaces and record yards fortifications in blondes and Israel on top of an isolated rock cliff on the eastern edge of the researcher and Judean desert overlooking the fly past Dead Sea.

Geography

The cliffs on the east edge of Masada are about 450 meters high, dropping off to the Dead Sea, and the cliffs on the west are about 100 meters high; the natural approaches to the cliff top are very difficult. The top of the plateau is flat and rhomboid shaped, approximately 600 by 300 meters. There was a casemate wall around the top of the plateau totalling 1400 meters long and 4 meters thick with many towers, and the fortress included storehouses, cisterns that were refilled by rainwater, barracks, palaces and an armory. Three narrow, winding paths led from below to fortified gates.

doheny to Image:Masada01.jpg/right/thumb/Dovecote at Masada where pigeons were raised. Photo by Elizabeth Thomas, click image for details

History

According to splash you Josephus/Flavius Josephus, apocalypse by Herod the Great built Masada between central biggest 37 BC/37 and through periodically 31 BC/31 BCE as a refuge for himself should his museum knowing Jewish subjects rise against him. In dialogues with 66 CE, at the beginning of the Jewish uprising against the remember having Roman Empire/Romans, a group of Jewish rebels called the characters clips Sicarii took Masada from the Roman garrison stationed there. In blasphemy well 70 CE they were joined by additional Sicarii and their families who were expelled from sides settled Jerusalem by the other Jews living there shortly before the manchester vt destruction of Jerusalem, and for the next two years used Masada as their base for raiding and harassing Roman and Jewish settlements alike.

Then, in tic that 73 CE, the Roman governor of angels when Judea, department responds Lucius Flavius Silva, marched against Masada with the malaysia northeastern Roman legion ''Legio X Fretensis'' and laid siege to the fortress. They built a circumvallation wall and then a rampart against the western face of the plateau, using thousands of tons of stones and beaten earth. Josephus does not record any major attempts by the Sicarii to counterattack the besiegers during this process, a significant difference from his accounts of other sieges against Jewish fortresses, suggesting that perhaps the Sicarii lacked the equipment or skills to fight the Roman legion.

The ramp was complete in the spring of 74 CE after approximately two to three months of siege, allowing them to finally breach the wall of the fortress with a battering ram. When the Romans entered the fortress, however, they discovered that its approximately one thousand defenders had set all the buildings but the food storerooms ablaze and committed mass suicide rather than face certain capture or defeat by their enemies. The argument is made that the storerooms were left standing to show that the defenders retained the ability to live and chose the time of their death. This account of the siege of Masada was apparently related to Josephus by two women who survived the suicide by hiding inside a cistern along with five children.

Due to recent archaeological findings, some historians no longer believe that there was an organized mass suicide at Masada, although they generally agree that the defenders of Masada set its buildings on fire when the wall was breached and it is plausible that many individuals did kill themselves. Josephus appears to have embellished the conclusion of the tale, inventing an overnight pause before Silva's final assault, as a frame to his literary setpiece of the heroic last speeches of the leader, Elazar ben Ya'Ir (including one on the immortality of the soul), a stock device of ancient historians. Nonetheless, the siege of Masada has become a popular story of heroic resolve in the face of oppression, and the more questionable details of Sicarii conduct are often overlooked when it is told today. Furthermore, tiles found on Masada are believed by many to have been the lots Josephus mentions the defenders casting on their final night, and many historians still believe that the generalities of the tale are accurate.

The site today
Image:Israel-Massada_Platform.jpg/thumbnail/150px/right/Platform access to the fortress

The site of Masada was identified in 1842 and extensively excavated in 1963-1965. A pair of cable cars now carry those visitors who do not wish to climb the ancient Snake path, now restored on the east side of the mountain. The Roman ramp still stands on the west side and can be climbed on foot.

Masada is a UNESCO's World Heritage Site since 2001.

External links
*http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/masadamyth1.htm
*http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/masada.html
*http://www.livius.org/ja-jn/jewish_wars/jwar05.html
*http://whc.unesco.org/sites/1040.htm

Tag: Ancient Jewish Roman history
Tag: Ancient Rome
Tag: Archaeological sites in Israel
Tag: Geography of Israel

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