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Masada

This research will examine archaeological finds that have been made at Masada in Israel. The research will set forth the historical background and context for archaeological research at Masada and then discuss how modern research has contributed to the understanding of history of ancient eastern Mediterranean culture.

In Western culture, the basis for understanding the events that gave Masada a high historical profile was for centuries the work of Josephus, a first-century Jew who wrote an account of the three-year siege by Roman legions of a Jewish fortress community originally built by Herod the Great, the last Hasmonean king (Small, 1990). The siege followed the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, the culmination of the so-called First Jewish Revolt, which had begun in AD 66 at the instigation of the zealots. The Jews who established themselves in Masada may have left Jerusalem as early as AD 66 (Masada, 1999), possibly a hard-core faction of the zealots who began the conflict and then decamped to the well-fortified and well-supplied rock -- and well out of range of the confusion surrounding destruction of the temple by Vespasian's legions (Cohen, 1982).

Equipped with cisterns and food stores, Masada had been both well engineered and well secured as a fortress and leisure retreat at the time of its construction. This was supported in 1996, when the luxuriousness of the facilities was inferred from excavation of a decorated reception hall, part of a series of previously uncovered rooms that functioned as an entrance into the compound. A less elaborate entrance at one edge of the site "seems to have been reserved for deliveries" (Watzman, 1996, p. 14). The food stores, Watzman adds, were kept cool in two caves exploited for that purpose. Inside those caves, archaeologists found remains of storage jars, an amphora (egg-shaped jar) with Herod's name on it, wooden utensils, and remnants of food.

Such supplies...

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Masada. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 00:34, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709578.html