Masada

Masada (Ancient Greek Μασάδα Masada, Modern Hebrew מצדה Metzada) is an archaeological site in Israel. It is located in the Southern District. On a summit plateau on the edge of the Judean Desert, high above the Dead Sea, Herod had a palace fortress built. This royal retreat was completed around 15 B.C. The architecture is partly traditional (Eastern Hellenistic), partly modelled on Roman villas. Herod offered his guests a special attraction in the form of a thermal spa and a swimming pool.

Around 70 years later, during the Jewish War, many people used Masada as a refuge rock. Archaeological findings show an everyday life marked by poverty and a high fluctuation of the population living here. Coming and going was possible for years until Legio X Fretensis under Flavius Silva appeared in front of Masada in 73 or 74 AD, enclosed the fortress with a rampart and raised a siege ramp. According to the account of Flavius Josephus, the Romans finally succeeded in tearing a breach in the outer wall. In a hopeless situation, the commander of Masada, Eleazar ben Jaʾir, had convinced all the rebels to commit suicide with their wives and children. As is common in ancient historical works, Josephus composed these speeches for Eleazar. It is questionable whether the capture of Masada took place as Josephus describes. The archaeological evidence cannot be combined with Josephus' account without tension. But there is also no consensus on an alternative scenario.

In 1838, Edward Robinson and Eli Smith identified the ruins, known in Arabic as es-Sebbe, with the ancient desert fortress described by Josephus. Since the 1920s, Masada gained symbolic significance for the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine: in Yitzhak Lamdan's verse epic Masada (1927), the desert fortress stands metaphorically for the Zionist project. During World War II, numerous groups made the difficult climb to the summit plateau, an experience that, along with Lamdan's epic, contributed to the formation of a "Masada myth." Masada's metaphorical significance changed against the backdrop of the founding of the state and Israel's wider history. From 1963 to 1965, Yigael Yadin directed large-scale excavations on the summit plateau. He published a popular account of the life of the Zealots on Masada and the Roman conquest, in which he harmonized the archaeological findings with the account of Josephus.

In 1966, Table Mountain and the surrounding area with the Roman siege complex were declared an Israeli National Park. On December 14, 2001, UNESCO included Masada in the World Heritage List.

Name

The ancient name of the site was מצדא Metzadaʾ in Aramaic in the texts of Wadi Murabbaʿat and המצד haMetzad in Hebrew in the Copper Scroll of Qumran; both designations have the same meaning: "mountain height, mountain fortress." In an almost ideal manner the mesa of Masada corresponds to the requirements of a rock of refuge, to which the population could retreat in times of distress. It is thus very aptly named. Josephus transcribed the Aramaic name into Greek, Metzadaʾ thus becoming Masada.

Geology and geographical position

The archaeological site of Masada is located on the plateau of an isolated table mountain of Upper Cretaceous dolomite (Cenomanian-Turonian) on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert. It is part of the Heʿetekim cliffs that border the Dead Sea Valley on the west side. As a relatively young, little eroded horst on the edge of a tectonic plate, it is also geologically interesting. It has approximately the base of a rhombus, the diagonals measuring about 600 m in length and 300 m in width. The summit plateau rises about 450 m above the western shore of the Dead Sea. On the west side, however, the difference in elevation is only 75 m.

Two wadis rise on the lowest level of the Judean Desert and run from the west toward the mesa of Masada. Wadi Nimre (Nachal Ben Jaʾir) bypasses the mountain to the north, Wadi Sebbe (Nachal Metzada) to the south; they then form, "plunging abruptly over a cataract, a 200 m deep gorge with almost vertical walls." While the Table Mountain is difficult to access from the east side, its west side is less steep. There it is connected to the heights of the Judean Desert by a saddle about 200 m wide between Wadi Nimre and Wadi Sebbe.

The historical transport connections to Masada were established during the Jewish War; in 1932, Adolf Schulten stated in this regard: "The roads that Silva built at that time in order to provide himself with everything necessary for the siege still exist and are passable today." This network of roads is therefore presented in more detail in the context of the Roman siege complex.