Masada

I got up at 4:45 A.M. to visit Masada. A lot of people hike up for sunrise, but unfortunately for me, I had a 45 minute drive from the ranch I was staying at and the sun started coming up about 30 minutes into my drive.

It still made for some dramatic vistas as I drove up the southern end of the Dead Sea.

I'd decided to start my hike up Masada early because I knew the heat by 8 A.M. would make it impossible to do the hike. The plan was to hike the Snake Path on the eastern side of the mountain up and take the cable car down a couple of hours later after I explored the site. The Roman Ramp Path on the Western side is considerably easier, but I thought the Snake Path would be the cooler experience. Also, the Roman Ramp is reached by an inland route, which would have meant I wouldn't get to drive along the Dead Sea on my way to and from Masada.

Well, the Snake Path was quite the experience. The path is steep and rocky, with many steps thrown in. I'd been doing a lot of walking while in Israel (I'd walked almost 6kms in Tel Aviv two days earlier) so I figured I was at least in good enough shape to manage it.

The views were spatactular, but by the halfway point up the mountain I was spent and not focusing on my surroundings much, other than to keep slowly plodding toward the top. I was soaked with sweat. I found out later that the temperature was close to 90 at 7 A.M. Officials at the park had closed the path for hiking up by 8 A.M. when the temperature broke 100.

The sign at the beginning of that path states that the hike should take about 45 minutes for most people. It took me about 70 minutes. By the end I was walking about 500 feet at a time before resting and drinking water. I drank almost all of my 4 liters of water by the time I'd made it to the Snake Path Gate at the top. I found a bench just inside the gate and sat for a while catching my breath and cooling down before venturing out and exploring the site.

Madasa is one of the most famous sites in Israel. The story is controversial not just for it's content, but also because much of the archeological evidence does not back up the account given by 1st century historian Josephus, who recorded his version from oral accounts from the only five survivors. In 73 A.D., seven years after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, a radical group of Jews were still living at Masada, the cliff top fortress built by Herod the Great over a hundred years earlier. The Roman legions had been sent out of Jerusalem to quash the last of the Jewish resistance, and Masada was one of the last holdouts.

The Roman Ramp

After months of failed attempts by the Romans to take the site via the Snake Path, the Romans began to build a massive ramp on the west side out of stones and massive amounts of earth using Jewish slave labor. As it became clear to the leaders of Masada that defeat was imminent, the leaders had decided that they would rather die than be taken alive by the Romans and forced into slavery.

A plan was devised where 10 men were selected to kill the residents of the city first, then each other so that only one man would have to commit suicide, a grave sin in Judaism. When the Romans finally breached the gates, they entered a completely empty city with piles of bodies laying in the center. The zealots had even left their food stores out in the open to show the Romans that they had chosen death, and had not been in danger of starving. The survivors who told the story to Josephus were two women and five children who had survived by hiding in a cistern.

Each year at their swearing in ceremonies, soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force are brought to Masada and repeat the oath that "Masada shall never fall again".

The site itself was very interesting. The views over the southern end of the Dead Sea were extraordinary.

It took me about three hours to explore the site. I first explored the southern end of the mountain, where the ruins were not extensively restored of excavated.

Of particular interest on the south side of the ruins was the cistern. These massive rooms designed to hold the city's water were carved right into the rock below the main level of the city. In such an arid region, keeping a good amount of water stored nearby was vital to the survival of the city.

The views from the Southern Wall also gave me a perspective as to how tough it must have been to take this cliff-top fortress.

The picture above is the ruins of one of the seven camps the Romans built around the base of Masada. The was also one built on the top of the cliffs to the southern end of the fortress.

The North side of Masada contained a number of very interesting ruins, including the platforms and temples that Herod build on the northern slopes.

There were extensive ruins of warehouses and animal pens. Looking at the size of these it was easy to see how much though had been put into the importance of fortifying Masada in case of a siege.

As with many ruins I'd seen in Israel, there were elaborately decorated bathouses, and the one at Masada was no exception. There were still some of the mosiacs remaining, as well as the some of the painted walls in some of the rooms.

The above picture was taken using my fancy new zoom lens that I purchased when I bought the camera right before the trip. The green patch in the middle Ein Gedi, the National Park I'd visited the previous day.

Look closely and you can see the cable car ascending

I enjoyed my exploration of Masada, and even after three hours on top of the mountain, I felt like I could have explored for another hour or two. The heat of the day was finally starting to get to me. It was 105 degrees at 1030 A.M. and the sun wasn't even directly overhead yet. There was no way I was walkig back down the snake path, instead I opted for the eight minute cable car ride back to the visitor center.

Sore and more than a little sunburned, I headed back to Ein Bokek (see The Dead Sea post) to get some air-conditioning and some free Wifi, before heading to Tel Arad, which I will cover in my next post.