Chronicle Editor Emeritus Jerry Bellune shares with you his adventures in the Holy Land. The experience gave him a greater appreciation of shared US and Israeli values.

Masada, Judea

Imagine your family and friends have been under siege for more than 3 years.

All of you are secluded in a mountain fortress.

Slaves have built a ramp for a Roman legion to reach the gates of your fortress with a battering ram.

If they succeed in breaching the walls, you face the rest of your life as a slave.

It is an intimidating prospect. Roman slaves are ill used and abused. They rarely lived long.

Your other options are:

• Fight them to the death, but you and your family will be slaughtered.

It is a grim choice.

• Take their lives mercifully, then your own. But for Orthodox Jews, suicide is forbidden by law and viewed as a sin.

The final siege

Roman slaves laboriously pushed a siege tower and battering ram up the ramp, according to Flavius Josephus, a Jewish rebel leader captured by the Romans who became their historian.

With the ram, they legionnaires breached the fortress walls and burst through, expecting the rebels to meet them with force of arms.

But they were in for a surprised – no resistance.

They discovered the rebels had set fire to the buildings and committed suicide.

According to Josephus, they found the bodies of 960 adults and children.

Josephus wrote how the Sicari rebel leader had convinced his people to kill themselves. Only 3 women and 5 children were alive.

Josephus based his account on the field commentaries of Roman officers made accessible to him.

Why so few remains?

Archaeologists’ findings and Josephus’ history differ.

Josephus mentions only 1 of King Herod’s 2 palaces that have been excavated, refers only to 1 fire while many buildings showed fire damage and claims that 960 people were killed.

Only the remains of 28 bodies have been found.

The site of Masada was identified in 1838 by Americans Edward Robinson and Eli Smith. In 1842, American missionary Samuel Wolcott and the English painter W. Tipping were the first moderns to climb it.

Initial excavation of the site began in 1959. I was there only 23 years later.

Masada was extensively excavated between 1963 and 1965 by an expedition led by Israeli archaeologists.

What has been found

Due to its remoteness from human habitation in the Judean desert, the site had been largely untouched by man for 2,000 years.

When I ascended Masada in 1982, I saw that many ancient buildings had been restored from their remains.

Also restored were paintings of Herod’s 2 palaces, the Roman-style bathhouses, the synagogue, storehouses and homes of the Jewish rebels.

Large cisterns captured rain water which allowed the rebels to save enough water for 3 years.

The Roman ramp still stands on the western side and can be climbed on foot.

Being journalists, not slaves or legionnaires, we took a cable car to the top.

What you can see

The wall the Romans built around Masada to protect their backs and 8 Roman siege camps can be seen.

The Roman siege installations, especially the attack ramp, are well preserved.

Inside the synagogue they found fragments of scrolls of Genesis, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Ezekiel, Psalms, Sirach and Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.

The skeletal remains of a male 20–22 years old, a female 17–18 and a child about 12 were found in the palace. Remains of 2 men and a head of braided woman’s hair were found in the bath house. Forensic analysis showed her hair had been cut with a sharp instrument while she was still alive, an old practice for captured women.

Her braids indicated that she was married.

Based on evidence, anthropologists believe the remains may have been Romans the rebels captured when they seized Masada.

The remains of 24 more people were found in a cave at the base of the cliff. They were reburied as Jews in a state ceremony.

Since our sons watched the TV reenactment of the Masada siege with us, I picked up 2 rough stones and put them in my pocket.

I wanted something from the Holy Land that they could identify with.

Next: Through the Good Fence to a war zone.