Morning Mountain—Day Six

We awoke to the sun shining through a pristine sky which sat over mountains that guard the eastern flank of the Dead Sea. The night before it was hard to miss hearing the IDF F-16s on maneuvers in this sparsely populated area. But the morning offered us only quiet.

Today would be a light day with a planned tour of Masada before lunch and an afternoon off. Most of our troop opted for an afternoon Dead Sea float in the mineral-rich waters of this lifeless sea. Before our aquatic adventures could begin, we had a mountain to climb, to a lifeless hilltop fortress.

Masada viewed from the south.

A view of Massada from its interior looking east across the Dead Sea.

After breakfast, a short bus ride brought us to the visitor center at the base of Masada. It is said that Herod the Great never visited one of his most ambitious building projects. If he had, he would have been treated to sweeping views of the valley almost 1500 feet below. Building on Hasmonean foundations, Herod developed the flat mesa into an impressive fortress with an ingenious system for collecting scan rainfall into massive cisterns. He also built a beautiful "hanging palace" which clings to the mountain's northern face.

A model of Herod's Hanging Palace showing how it would have appeared at its completion.

Some of the Hanging Palace's original consstrution still clings to the moutianside.

Columns chiseled from native rock are all that remanis of the upper Hanging Palace.

First Century rescoes glow with renewed vigor after their cleaning. Even without restoration the colors are brilliant.

A few years before the Second Temple's destruction in 70 A.D., a band of Jewish rebels overcame a small Roman garrison on the mountaintop and seized Masada. After the Temple was destroyed, a larger group fled Jerusalem and joined them, about 960 souls in all. The Roman 10th Legion, led by Lucius Flavius Silva, laid siege to Masada trapping the zealots in their aerie. The meter-high wall that the Romans built around Masada can still be seen, together with eight Roman siege camps just outside this wall.

The Roman seige wall and one of the 10th Legion's encampments is visible from the mountain top

The siege ended when the legion breached the wall. When the victorious Romans entered the fortress, they reportedly found all but a few of the 960 dead. The zealots chose death over slavery at the urging of their leader, Eleazar ben Ya'ir.

Fortunately, there was no Roman siege on the day we visited, and reaching the summit required only a short cable car ride instead of a siege ramp and battering ram. Even so, some of our group chose to make the ascent on foot, using the ancient serpentine path. After about 90 minutes of climbing, they were awarded entry via the Byzantine Gate.

The restoration is impressive and each bus group toured palaces, cisterns, storehouses, and a synagogue where a scribe still copies the Torah to this day. For a small donation, he also wrote our names in Hebrew.

Part of the westeren structure includes a columbarium where small birds woudl house.
They were a source of communicatoin (homing pigeons) and food.

Some of the birds have chosen to remain :-)

After hiking the site for a few hours, it was time for our group to refresh themselves with some water and begin our descent. The Serpentine path may take 90 minutes or so to ascend, but a mere 30 in the descent. More than a few B4ians were up to the task, mostly those with young knees. The rest enjoyed a quick trip down by cable car.

After lunch, a restful afternoon awaited us at the Isrotel Ganim Hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea. Hot mineral baths, a seaside float, and a lush buffet fortified us for the four days we would spend in Jerusalem.

A desert moonrise at Ein Bokek, Israel