Masada

Masada (məsā`də), ancient mountaintop fortress in Israel, the final outpost of the Zealot Jews in their rebellion against Roman authority (A.D. 66–73). Located in the Judaean Desert, the fortress sits atop a mesa-shaped rock that towers some 1,300 ft (400 m) above the western shore of the Dead Sea. According to the ancient historian Josephus, Masada was first fortified sometime during the 1st or 2d cent. B.C. Between 37 and 31 B.C. Herod the Great, king of Judaea, further strengthened Masada, building two ornate palaces, a bathhouse, aqueducts, and surrounding siege walls. In A.D. 66, with the outbreak of the Jewish war against Rome, the Zealots, an extremist Jewish sect, seized the fortress in a surprise attack and massacred its Roman garrison. Masada remained under Zealot control until A.D. 73, when, after a siege, the 15,000 soldiers of Rome's tenth legion finally subdued the 1,000 men, women, and children holding the fortress. In a final act of defiance, however, almost all of the Jewish defenders had killed themselves rather than be captured and enslaved by the Romans. Only two women and five children survived to tell of the Zealots' last action. Most archaeologists believe the siege lasted several months, although some have suggested it may have taken only a few weeks. Excavated (1963–65) by Yigael Yadin and an international team of volunteer archaeologists, Masada is now a major tourist site and an Israeli historical shrine. Large-scale archaeological excavations were also conducted at the site in the 1950s.

Bibliography

See Y. Yadin, Masada (tr. 1966).

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Masada

Ancient mountain fortress, southeastern Israel. It occupies the entire top of a mesa that is 1,424 ft (434 m) tall and has an area of about 18 acres (7 hectares). It is best known for the fortifications built by Herod the Great in the 1st century BC; it was captured by the Zealots, a Jewish sect, in their revolt against Rome in AD 66. After the fall of Jerusalem, Masada, the last remnant of Jewish rule in Palestine, refused to surrender. In 73, after a lengthy siege, it was finally taken by the Romans, who found that nearly all of the some 1,000 Zealots there had committed suicide rather than be captured. In the 20th century the fortress became a symbol of Jewish national heroism; now one of Israel's most visited tourist attractions, it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2001.

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Masada

an ancient mountaintop fortress in Israel, 400 m (1300 ft.) above the W shore of the Dead Sea: the last Jewish stronghold during a revolt in Judaea (66--73 ad). Besieged by the Romans for a year, almost all of the inhabitants killed themselves rather than surrender. The site is an Israeli national monument

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Masada 

an ancient Judean fortress near the southern shore of the Dead Sea.

Masada was founded in the late second century B.C. Under Herod I (73-04 B.C.) a palace complex and additional fortifications were built. In the Judean War of A.D. 66-73, Masada was the last strongpoint of the rebels. Excavations conducted in Masada in 1963-65 unearthed many objects, including Roman and Judean coins, ostraca, papyruses and inscriptions on leather containing economic records, and letters, as well as religious literary texts in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

REFERENCE

Teksty Kumrana, issue 1. Translated from ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, with commentaries by I. D. Amusin. Moscow, 1971.