Day 9 - Friday, March 17, 2023

Day 9 - Friday, March 17, 2023 - Masada and Qumran

March 17, 2023

Breakfast didn't start until 7:30 and Masada was only 15 minutes from the hotel so we had a more relaxing morning.

Masada was the winter fortress-palace of Herod built around 33 BCE on the top of a mountain close to the Dead Sea on the edge of the Judean Desert. It looks like a volcanic butte but is composed of sandstone. It is hard to imagine what was involved in carrying materials up such steep slopes.

Most of us took the cable car up to the top, about a 4-minute trip, although two of our fellow travelers walked up the steep switch-back trail in the intense sun, taking about an hour.

Herod was a Jewish king but also liked Roman comforts. There are traditional Jewish "mikva" baths and also Roman heated baths which have fires underneath. Many of the floors still have beautiful mosaics from the time. He directed the construction of large cisterns and an elaborate set of channels to fill them with water. He died around 4 CE and this was largely abandoned.

Around the year 66 CE, a group of Jewish Sicarii rebels fled here from Jerusalem and set up residence with their families. After the temple was destroyed in 70CE, they were joined by others and were able to live there, growing crops and using water from Herod's cisterns. In 73CE, the 10th Roman legion laid siege and the night before the Romans were to breach the settlement, all of the people other than one woman and two children commit suicide rather than be killed, raped or enslaved. This is recorded in the writings of Josephus at the time.

Leaving Masada by bus, we continued north close to the Dead Sea. It is absolutely desolate, even more dry than southern Arizona and New Mexico. Due to that lack of water flowing into the Dead Sea, it is dropping by 2-3' every year.

It was a 45 minute drive to Qumran. Qumran was a settlement of Essene Jews from about 100BCE to 50CE. They lived in community, sharing all that they had and followed strict religious rules. They are most famous for the Dead Sea Scrolls which were discovered in a cave by a shepherd looking for his goats. The Essenes had saved them in pottery jars to keep them from being discovered in case the Romans came and killed them all. He didn't know what they were but the value was recognized by an antiquities dealer. The scrolls detail many aspects of the Qumran community but more importantly, are the writings which are the earliest known copies of the old testament books and have nearly identical texts to the next earliest ones from the 11th century. We toured the ruins which have descriptions of the baths, reservoirs, date processing and pottery facilities.

As we passed the north end of the Dead Sea, the terrain became greener. It will all turn brown in a few months, like Southern California. There is considerable agriculture through irrigation, with citrus groves and banana plantations.

We are staying in Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee although some distance from the water.