Masada Shall Never Fall Again

Hi All,

It's about time I got you back on tour.  Grab a water bottle and a hat. We are going to explore Masada.  It's a very special place to the Israelis.  The title of this post is a rallying cry for them like our "Remember the Alamo".  Masada has an interesting story.

Masada rises above the desert about 35 miles to the West of the Dead Sea.  The Dead Sea is the lowest land elevation on earth at 423 meters (1,388 feet) below sea level.  Masada rises to 50 meters (164 feet) above sea level.   The cliff face on the East side of Masada is 400 meters (1,300 feet).   That's a heck of a cliff.  On the west side, Masada rises 91 meters (400 feet).   Not as much of a rise but still a hike.   Here's a photo of Masada from the East with the inset showing Masada from the North.  If you look closely in the top center of the larger picture you can see the top station of the cable car that we will be taking to the top of Masada.  The good news is you won't have to be taking the snake path to the top.

Note, Marc Ewell was one our tour group.
He has graciously allowed the usage of some of his photos.
Please do not use any of his photos without checking with him first.

See the path in this pic, taken from the the cable car?  Look at the little dots on the path.  Those are people. Yes, there are hardy souls who are willing to hike up the snake path to the top of Masada.

The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Moshe Dayan, initiated the practice of holding the swearing-in ceremony of soldiers who have completed their Tironut (IDF basic training) on top of Masada. The ceremony ends with the declaration: "Masada shall not fall again." The soldiers climb the Snake Path at night and are sworn in with torches lighting the background.  This is a now a voluntary climb for the soldiers but most choose to do so.  Sturdy soldiers.

Masada was the first place that Herod the Great fortified after he gained control of his kingdom.  Herod, as I mentioned when we visited Caesarea, had a lot of constuction done during his reign.   One of the most amazing architectural pieces (in my humble opinion mind you) is the Northern palace.

Here is a model of the Northern palace along with a photo of the middle tier.    Now, if you look at the photo above, on the right you can see the three tiers to the right of the cables.  The architects of Herod's palace build the palace on the side of the cliff.   If you notice in the inset at right, you can see two walls for the circular tower.  They made the walls of that level hollow to keep the weight down.  It wouldn't do much good to have the king's palace slide off the side of the cliff would it.

Before going any further, it is important to give credit to Professor Yigael Yadin for uncovering and restoring Masada.  If you want to find out more detailed information about Masada, check out the book "The Zealots of Masada".  I've been reading it and it has some fascinating information.

Okay... onward.  We step off the cable car and make sure our hats are situated.  Remember it gets a little toasty up here.  When Sue and I were here, it wasn't too bad.  It was around 80F.  A friend of mine told me that when she was there in June it was 120F!  I'm glad it wasn't that hot for us.  Even so, we would find shady spots whenever we could.  Our guide Irit told us that is an important thing to do when in Israel.  Find shade.

Hey Sue, you got some shade there.  I'm glad to see you have water but   you should have a hat.  Isn't she cute?  What an adorable roommate.

Now, you look at Masada and if you happened to check it on the map, you will see it is in the desert.  Add to that the height above the surrounding area and one has to ask, how in the world did they get water up there?  That's a heck of a climb to make with jars of water.  Especially when you figure the nearest water is Ein Gedi which is around 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.    Would you want to hike that far in scorching weather to get a little water?

Well folks, let's discover the marvel of engineering that was used to get water.  First, cisterns were built (dug?).  Here's a photo of one of the cisterns.  If you look at the left side of the photo you will see a smaller pool.  That is a settling pool where the water came in to allow the solids to settle then the cleaner water would flow into the cistern.  Clever huh?

 Now, on the right here, is a model of how the water was collected in the cisterns.  This is a model of Masada viewing from the Northwest which is the side where the drop is only 300 meters.  When it rains in the Western part of Israel (like Jerusalem) the water flows downhill and floods into the desert area.  For those who are familiar with how flash floods can occur in Arizona, you have an idea of how this works.   Herod had dams and aqueducts built to collect this flooding water.  It was routed to the cisterns for collection.  I colored the aqueducts blue in the picture at right so you can see it better.   What a clever idea.

This is a plaque that explains the water system at Masada.  It's incredible to me that people decided to live on this plateau in the middle of the desert in the first place.  Figuring out the water issue certainly made it possible but it's really some major tenacity to even plan on a city there.

Below is a picture of one of the aqueducts where it goes into one of the cisterns.   Once the water was captured, it was just a matter of going to one of the cisterns to gather the water.  Meanwhile, the city is safe from attacks since it's so high up.  Before the enemy can scale the cliffs, it would be easy to fend off the attackers. Easily defended.  Safe..

... or was it?  Stay tuned.  There will be more information about Masada coming up in a few days.