Israel - Day 6 - Masada

We woke up on Day 6 & Trek ran with his friends again.  He was absolutely LOVING running around Jerusalem.  Canyon was finally feeling a lot better, but now Bladen wasn't feeling great.  Poor kids.

We had breakfast at the hotel, then hopped in the bus to head to the desert.  On our way there we passed Ein Gedi.  There are a few scriptures that mention this place in the bible, but I love the story of David & Saul

1 Samuel 24:1

"And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of En-Gedi."

This is where Saul tries to hunt & kill David, but finds himself in a situation where David could kill HIM, but is merciful & let's Saul go.

We continued to drive through the desert until we came to Masada!  I LOVED MASADA!

Masada is an ancient fortification on the top of a HUGE rock formation in the Eastern edge of the Judean desert, overlooking the beautiful Dead Sea.  Herod the Great built 2 fortresses on the top of Masada between 37 & 31 BC.  This rock has steep cliffs on all sides!  These cliffs are about 1300 ft tall all around the rock.  It's HUGE.  Herod built a 13 foot tall wall around the entire top of this place to protect his fortresses.  It is also said that Herod kept an endless supply of food here in case he ever needed to use these fortresses as refuge in the event of a revolt.

There are 2 ways up to the top of Masada.  You can hike it using the switchbacks which takes about an hour, or you can ride the cable car straight to the summit which takes about 2 minutes.  Our tour guide loves us & got us tickets to the cable car.  We watched the hikers below as we went up & holy cow, that is a STEEP hike.

The Judean Desert

The Dead Sea

Once we got to the top we started exploring all the remains of the wall, ancient structures & palaces, & got a good look at the water cistern system they had up there.  The whole thing was incredible.  I can't even imagine having to bring building supplies or food up to this place.  It would be exhausting.  I was also amazed at how much of the original structures were still there in such great shape.  I love archaeological finds like this.  They help us learn so much about how people lived here thousands of years ago.  This place was truly fascinating to me.

Original PAINT in Herod's palace

What the levels of one of the palaces looked like on the cliff's edge.

The water system there was incredible.  There are a lot of flash floods up there when it rains, though it doesn't rain often.  They had developed a system of cisterns carved into the rock face that would catch the rain & flood water as it came down & would store it in caves so they'd always have fresh water.

One of the best preserved rooms was a Roman bath.  The mosiac floor was still in tact, the areas where they'd put hot coals were still there as well as the warm stones they'd sit on.  It was an amazing find.

The most well-known story of Masada is a sad one.  It's so popular it was even made into a movie.  In 66 AD, a group of Jewish rebels (the Sicarii) overcame the Roman garrison.  Their numbers grew & they eventually had a rather large group of members living upon the mountain.  In 73 AD, the Roman governor Lucius Silva laid siege to Masada.  His army spent several months building a RAMP up the side of that huge mountain allowing the Romans to BREACH the wall with a battering ram.  (It is SO hard to believe seeing the height of this place in person.  The original ramp has been destroyed, but they have a similar one that was built recently to show what it would have looked like & it's INSANE.  I'm still angry I didn't take a single picture of it!)

The Jewish Zealots on Masada knew that they were trapped.  They either had to surrender to Rome & be slaves or they'd die.  They decided to choose for themselves.  A group of men met together & decided death would be better than slavery.  They killed all the women & children in Masada then drew lots to kill each other.  The last man standing had to fall upon his own sword.

When the Romans breached through the gate, they found 960 people dead.  Only 2 women & 5 children survived that awful day & were able to tell the tale.

I loved our time at Masada.  It was such an interesting place with SO much history.  I love places like that.  We hopped back in the bus & headed past the dead sea.  We passed the location of Sodom & Gomorrah & made our way to Qumran.