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New Thoughts on the Roman Siege of Masada
Archaeology Magazine ^ | September 5, 2024 | editors / unattributed

Posted on 09/06/2024 9:26:52 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

According to a Haaretz report, a new study of the Roman structures at Masada conducted by Guy Stiebel of Tel Aviv University, Hai Ashkenazi of the Israel Antiquities Authority, and their colleagues suggests that the final siege at the hilltop desert fortress at the end of the First Jewish-Roman War (a.d. 66–73) lasted a couple of weeks, and not a couple of years, as had been previously thought.

The first-century a.d. historian Josephus Flavius recorded that the fortress was captured from the Romans by a group of Jewish rebels known as the Sicarii in A.D. 66.

A Roman legion surrounded Masada with a wall to isolate the Sicarii, and then constructed a siege ramp to enter the fortress around A.D. 73. The researchers estimated the original height, volume, and length of the well-preserved Roman structures through a ground survey, drone imagery, and 3-D digital modeling. They then used historical reports of how much stone a trained Roman soldier could carry in a day to estimate how long it would have taken to construct the siegeworks.

The study indicates that if 5,000 of the 6,000 to 8,000 Roman soldiers at Masada were dedicated to building the wall, it would have taken them 11 to 16 days to complete the task. The ramp may have taken another four to six weeks, resulting in a "quick, brutal, and efficient affair," lasting about two months, Stiebel said.

"They came, they made a precision strike and they left after a few weeks," he explained, adding that the Romans may have undertaken the operation because the Sicarii of Masada had attacked the Jewish town of Ein Gedi to the north and interrupted its lucrative trade in perfume.

(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; israel; masada; romanempire
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To: usurper

Probably correct.

I read somewhere that the Romans building the ramp began taking casualties from the defenders’ arrows and boulders, so they brought in a bunch of Jewish slaves to finish the work.


21 posted on 09/06/2024 12:03:02 PM PDT by Max in Utah (A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.)
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To: sauropod

My pleasure, thanks for the kind remarks!


22 posted on 09/06/2024 12:33:04 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: Jumper

I’m curious how the name Arrow came from Masada? Is the Hebrew for the word Arrow similar to it? I worked on the Arrow 1 from 1988-1990. Was there for the first test launch. Visited Masada a couple of times.


23 posted on 09/06/2024 12:42:31 PM PDT by nhbob1
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To: Verginius Rufus

Bunch of fools got themselves and their families dead.
Predicable outcome.

I see nothing to celebrate.


24 posted on 09/06/2024 2:08:20 PM PDT by hoosierham (Freedom isnt free)
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To: nhbob1

There used to be bumper stickers in Israel that said Masada Never Again with an arrow like you would shoot from a bow on it.

My wife was the US Army Arrow Field Office Manager in Tel Aviv from 2005-2006. I’m very familar with the program, the conferences quarterly back and forth to the States, etc. Had many a discussion with IDF officers who told me how they would eventually deal with Hamas/Gaza. They said they would deal with it by a grid square system, one section at a time, above and below the ground. I had a more lineral impression but this is essentially what they have engaged in. It won’t stop until Hamas is stopped.


25 posted on 09/06/2024 2:32:04 PM PDT by Jumper
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To: wally_bert

“I had to look that model pistol up, didn’t know it.”

Think of it as a Glock 19 Gen 5 clone but $125 less expensive.


26 posted on 09/06/2024 3:44:43 PM PDT by chrisinoc
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