in the middle east

On the second day of our Dead Sea road trip we started at the desert fortress of Masada. On the east side of the Dead Sea one immediately runs into a high wall of mountains and hills, and among these sits the high plateau of Masada. This large oval plateau rises 1,100 feet above the desert floor and served as an ancient palace for king Herod and later as a fortress for the Jewish resistance movement against Rome. While there had been fortesses here before, Herod was the first one to make this isolated plateau into something like a desert resort for himself and his guests (near the end of the 1st cent. BC). As you'll see, he spared no expense. After his death, the Romans used it as a center for exerting their authority in this region. Jewish rebels siezed it in AD 66, just before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. This desert plateau became the location of the last stand between Rome and the Jewish resistance. The Roman army encircled and besieged the fortress for two years, unable to get enough manpower up the cliffs to stage any attack. After two years, the Romans built a gigantic siege ramp rising almost 900 feet up to the fortress wall. The night before the wall was breached, the Jewish resistance fighters and their families decided that it would be better to die than to have all the males killed and the women and children sold into slavery. The staged a massive group suicide: lots were drawn to select who would slay whom, until only two were left, and they finished each other off together. The lots with names were found in one of the rooms we visited. Pretty eerie. Thus, this plateau is not only an amazing natural formation, but has an important history behind it. Join us for a bit of the experience at this link: http://mywebspace.wisc.edu/tpmackie/web/pictures/masada/i...