Israel Day 6

I was so glad that all we had this day was the trip up to Masada. Being up on the mountain for over 2 hours was a lot in the heat and sun. We were told it was over 40° C (104° F)...all dry heat, thank God. I could not imagine how miserable we would be if it was humid. At 9 PM when we headed down to float in the Dead Sea it was still 35°C (95° F). Maybe that's why our hotel room didn't ever really cool down.
Masada is huge! Much bigger than I expected it to be. One thing I have found is that though I have seen pictures of many of the places/sites we have visited, nothing compares to seeing all of this in real life. Having that 4D mental picture just can't be topped. The size of the city, 18 acres, is comparable to the Old city of Colonia, on top of a mountain. (I know that may not mean much to many of you but it's the only good comparison I could find.) All of Herod's palaces contained everything that would be needed for all of his wives, and servants.

The picture above shows pigeon holes used to house carrier pigeons for Herod to keep on top of the happenings throughout his kingdom. Below is the synagogue ruins.

Originally one of Herod the Great's cities, Masada, is completely self supporting. There would have been gardens, grass and flowers up here. A water system brought rain water down from the mountains behind Masada into an aqueduct leading into water cisterns holding almost 200 gallons. The water, to be used for pools, ritual baths, and drinking among other things, was then brought up to the top by donkey on a very narrow trail.
Masada was unique in that it had 4 palaces. The picture above is from the main palace on the mountain. While the one below is where the 3 lower palaces sat, along the cliff face. No thank you!
There are two way to arrive at the top of Masada. The easiest, and preferable, in my opinion, is the tram cars. And the other, more exhausting, way is the snake trail. OK, I'll grant that arriving through the latter would give a closer to genuine experience, but who wants to hike up the side of a desert mountain, or down for that matter, in 104° heat. Though there were a handful of our group who took the trail back down, I was content to take the tram and snap pictures from above of the adventurers on the trail. Plus we had more time to shop in the air-conditioned stores before lunch.
Herod was not the only one who found value in this mountain top citadel. In 66 AD, the Zealots, a group of Jewish rebels conquered Masada from the Romans. In 70 AD the Romans began a siege on the city only to find the Zealots refusing to surrender. It took two years for them to build up a ramp along the back side of the mountain in order to move a battering ram to the walls. Though the Romans breached the wall they did not enter the city that night. That was enough time for the Zealots, not desiring to become slaves or worse to Rome, to commit suicide. Only 2 women and a handful of children survived after hiding.