One day while we were in Jerusalem, we headed east out of Jerusalem on our way to the Dead Sea and the mountaintop fortress of Masada. We went right back to the highway junction outside Jericho, but turned south along the west side of the Dead Sea. As we approached the ancient oasis of En Gedi, we passed acres of date palms, all planted in neat rows, fenced and assiduously cultivated. At the oasis, a restaurant and bath house have been constructed, as well as a walkway down to the water of the Dead Sea.
Even though I've always heard that "you can't drown in the Dead Sea" because of its great mineral content, there were lifeguards on a regular U.S.-style lifeguard tower, and they were warning swimmers not to venture out too far because of the waves that day.
We also stopped at Qum Ran, the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. There is no modern town here, but ruins can be seen of an ancient town by that name. From the ruins, a person can see numerous holes and crevices in the rocky hillsides. In addition, the combination of yellow-beige rock and brilliant sunshine makes every shadow so black as to be indistinguishable from holes in the rock.
We stopped again at a place where modern cosmetics and skin-care products are made from the minerals of the Dead Sea. This is a thriving business, and those of our group who knew about them seemed to hold these products in high regard.
Then we went on to the highlight of that day's travel, the mountain fortress of Masada. The structures on top of Masada were built by Herod the Great in about 38 B.C. Some historians say he used the place first as a palace, but later fortified it as a place of refuge, should he ever need it. From 6 A.D. to 66 A.D., the Romans controlled and used Masada. But the fortress's greatest fame came from its use as a refuge and, finally, a place of suicide for a group of Jewish patriots trapped there by the Romans at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, in 70 A.D.
The fortress is built on top of what Americans would call a mesa. Its 20 acre top overlooks nearly straight walls extending several hundred feet to the plain below. Today, the top is reached by riding a cable car. In Biblical times, the top was almost unreachable, which was the point of building there.
The ruins on top of the mountain are less interesting than the views over the sides. Looking to the east, north and northwest, a person can plainly see the outlines of the Roman camps whose soldiers besieged the last remaining Jews in 70 A.D. The borders of each camp, and the streets and tent sites are all clearly visible, even after some 1,965 years. And on the west, there is the great dirt ramp which the Romans built in order to get to the top of the mesa. It seems that the almost total lack of rainfall in the area has preserved these marks of the siege in a way that would not have been possible elsewhere.
Other pictures (they didn't fit into the articles)
Day 8 Return to Israel start page
