Masada
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How it came to be
Masada is a rock plateau on the western shore of the Dead Sea, rising more than 400 m above the surrounding land. Herod, king of Judaea, fortified the summit and built two palaces there between 37 and 31 BC.
In 66 AD the Sicarii took the Roman garrison by a ruse. At the end of the First Jewish–Roman War, Lucius Flavius Silva and the Tenth Legion Fretensis surrounded the plateau, built an assault ramp and breached the wall. Josephus wrote that 960 defenders took their own lives, but excavation has found the remains of at most 28 people, and his account is debated.
The Roman camps and ramp around the plateau are the most complete Roman siege works surviving. After a Byzantine monastic settlement ended in the 6th century, the site was left untouched for centuries. Yigael Yadin excavated it from 1963 to 1965, and it was inscribed in 2001.
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