A visit to the west side of Massada

Today (21 July 2012), we decided to visit the west side of Massada, the famous and iconic fortress where the Jews held out as long as they could against the might of the Roman Empire.

In order to get there, one must first drive to Arad, and then one takes a road (a good 20 km long) whose sole purpose, it seems, is to take us to this spot.

This first picture shows the view of Massada from shortly after it first comes into view. As you can see, we are still at a higher elevation than the top of the fortress. Here, you can see all of Massada and also another mountain (to the right of it) that is about the same height. In fact, they don't look separate from this angle, but they are actually separated by a wide gap with nearly vertical walls on both sides. In the distance, of course, is the Dead Sea (the lowest point on the surface of our planet that is not under water!).

Here's a view from much closer and lower that shows only the north end of Massada.

This view is slightly to the right of the one above and is zoomed in more. This is the earthen ramp that the Romans had to build in order to assault the fortress. Imagine the effort and logistics required to move this much dirt, in the middle of a very DRY desert, with NO modern equipment, nearly 2000 years ago! If I had been one of them, I would surely have said, "Forget about it! Just let them HAVE the d*** place!"

This last picture may well be used to illustrate the definition of "serendipity" in the future! I didn't even know that this bird was there until I looked at my photos after getting home and loading them into my computer. I still don't know what kind of bird it is, but it looks magnificent!