Massada

Massada comes from the Hebrew word mitzada (מצדה), which means fortress . The site, made up of several palates and Fortification S antiques, is in Israel at the top of a mountain isolated on the slope is desert of Judaea, it overhangs the Dead Sea.

Geography

The cliffs of the east coast, overhanging the Dead Sea, are high approximately 450 meters; the cliffs in the west are high approximately 100 meters. The access to the top of the piton is very difficult. The top of the plate is flat and with the shape of a triangle of approximately 600 meters out of 300. A rampart equipped with many towers, a 1.400 meters length and a 4 meters thickness, locked the top of the plate. The fortress included/understood warehouses, cisterns which were supplied by palate, barracks, rainwater and arms manufacture. Three ways, narrow and sinuous rose to the strengthened doors.

History

In the beginning, Massada was a simple garrison strengthened by the first princes asmonéens. According to Flavius Josèphe, a Jewish historian of, Hérode Large the arranged the fortress in three successive waves of work, between 37 av. J. - C. and 15 av. J. - C. like refuge against possible interior revolts and threats of an Egyptian invasion. In 66, at the beginning of Jewish rising against the Roman , a group of Jewish rebels, the Sicaires of the party named Zealoies, took Massada with the Roman garrison which was stationed there. In 70 they were joined by other Sicaires and their families which had been expelled of Jerusalem by the other Jews which lived there little before the Destruction of Jerusalem. During the two following years, they used Massada as bases to plunder the Jews of the surroundings and to badger the Roman campings.

In 73, a legate, the general ordering the Roman army of Judaea, Lucius Flavius Silva, went on Massada with the Légion X Fretensis auxiliary and 6 troops to make the seat fortress. The legionaries built a wall of surrounding, then a slope of 100m top against the western face of the plate, with thousands of tons of stones, of beaten ground and tree trunks: a technical exploit. Flavius Josèphe does not announce any important attempt at counter-attack of Sicaires during this construction. The sicaires were sure that the fortress was impregnable, and had the weapons taken with the old Roman garrison, of the cisterns of water and much of vivres. One also tells that for the construction of this slope, the Romans used Hebrew prisoners in order to avoid the attacks of Sicaires, those not being able to be solved to kill their brothers for their survival. The fortress had been designed to support a long seat. Approximately 8000 Romans encircled a thousand of rebels and the geography of the places, the desert, made impossible an escape.

The slope was completed in spring 74, after approximately seven months of seat, which made it possible to the Romans to finally insert the wall of the fortress with a ram assembled on a mobile lathe. But when the legionaries penetrated in the fortress, they discovered that the defenders had put fire at all the buildings, except for the warehouses of food and that they were committed suicide masses some rather than to risk a capture or an unquestionable defeat. The warehouses had probably been preserved to show that the defenders had kept the capacity to live and to choose the hour of their death. The account of the collective suicide seems to be reported to Flavius Josèphe by two women who have escaped with the suicide while hiding in a cistern with their five children.

Following the recent archaeological discoveries, certain historians do not believe any more that one suicide in mass was organized in Massada, although they generally admit that the defenders of Massada put fire at the buildings when the walls were inserted, and it is probable that much of them committed suicide. Flavius Josèphe describes the sicaires like fanatics violent one and does not make a flattering portrait of these men. It rebuilds the speech of the chief, Elazar Ben Ya' Ir (including one on the immortality of the heart) explaining the motivations of this collective suicide, but, as a Romain, there remains perplexed in front of such an act. Nevertheless, the head office of Massada became a popular account illustrating heroism vis-a-vis oppression, and the most doubtful details of the behavior of Sicaires from now on are often relativized. The Jewish religion prohibiting the suicide categorically but authorizing the murder under very strict conditions, Sicaires were probably entretués: each father due to remove his family then a drawing lot designated the men who should carry out the survivors. Tiles being used for the drawing lot have summers found in Massada and attest veracity of this history. Many historians consider it today exact in its broad outlines.

The site today

The site of Massada was identified in 1842 and completely excavated 1963 with 1965. A cable car takes now charges with them the tourists who do not wish to borrow the path of the Snake, now restored on the side is mountain. The Roman slope always rises on the west coast and can be climbed with foot in about fifteen minutes, against 40 via the way of the Snake.

Massada was classified world heritage of UNESCO in 2001. Fortress perched on a granite base dominating the desert, close to the Dead Sea, Massada, with its restored ruins, became a modern place of pilgrimage for Israéliens and tourists.

The synagog of Massada is attended still today by many pilgrims.

Anecdote

The oath that the soldiers of the Israeli army lend today is: “Massada will not fall once again” " Chenit Matzada lo tipol" (שניתמצדהלאתיפול).

External bonds

the bilingual text of Flavius Josèphe reporting the catch of Massada
a chronology of the war of the Jews
Of the photographs of the site of Massada
Page of the site of the World heritage
archelogic Description of the site by Donald D. Binder

the telefilm with Peter O' Toole

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