Masada Fortress (Israel)
Finds that belong to the seven-year period (66-73) of zealots’ dominion shed light on their style of living in Masada and on the concluding period of the Judean war. Luxurious Herodian palaces and relatively small number of living quarters did not match zealots’ needs who turned palaces into public facilities and command posts and used their decorative parts as building materials for their dwelling places. The northern palace, most likely, served as the administrative center and fortified position of the insurgents. Halls and courts of the small palaces were divided into rooms that served as dwellings for the insurgents’ families. Most zealots lived in casemates of the fortress wall and in dugouts adjoining the wall and inner constructions.
In rooms spared by fire fragments of utensils used by zealots were discovered – clothes, leather, baskets, items of bronze, stone, glass and so forth. Heaps of ashes with remnants of personal effects testify that the besieged destroyed their possessions before they died. Many coins were found (two hoards of shekels) as well as alabaster and golden vessels, and few fragments of manuscripts.
Towers were mainly used as public facilities and workshops (bakeries, tanneries etc.). Zealots built several mikvehs in Masada – in the northern and southern parts of the fortress – that fully matched the requirements of Halakha. A room made by zealots was found in the wall, which, no doubt, served as a synagogue and is the earliest of all known synagogues (similar zealot synagogue was discovered in Herodion). During excavations 25 skeletons of males, females and children were found in a little cave in the southern section of the rock; in 1969 these remains were buried with military honors. Out of 700 ostracons with inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic 11 were written by the same hand with only one name written upon each piece; probably, they were made for casting lots which procedure, according to Flavius, was used by the last ten people who were remaining alive to determine who should kill the other nine before he kills himself. Fragments of 14 scrolls containing apocryphal and sectarian texts were discovered in Masada; it is worthwhile to note that one of them – a fragment of the Songs of Sabbath service – is identical with the scroll, which was found in Qumran.
During the Byzantine period (5-6 centuries) a small church with mosaic floor was built on Masada. West of the church there was a dining room and a kitchen. Few monks lived in caves and stone cells scattered on the top of the mountain.
After it was reconstructed, Masada became one of the most visited tourist sites in Israel. A cable car road was built on the eastern slope of the mountain in 1971.
Masada is a symbol of national heroism of the Jewish people: new conscripts of the armored troops take an oath of allegiance on Masada; and they swear, “Masada will never fall again!”
Materials taken from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia.