When I lived in Israel we visited. It was an interesting day. The roman style baths and stonework was similar to what you find all over the region, only this is in excellent condition.
The ramp took around two years to build. The two Roman Legion Squares are still evident 2000 years later. That was one hell of a job to build that ramp.
Choosing 10 men to finish the mass sucide the night before the Roman’s entered the top, was still a historic account when I went there in 2006. In the years since they found the 10 names or markers for those choosen to do the final deed. When the Romans searched the top, they found only one old woman alive.
Masada - Never Again.
Hence the name Arrow for the Missile system in part got it’s name from Masada.
Masad - Never Again.
For the Jews, Masada is imprinted upon their collective consciousness and the only the Holocast and the Syria battle on the Golan invokes such strong survival instincts. At the Golan, all the able bodied women and men left their farms and they left a single young girl behind to kill all the children rather than be captured by the Syrians if they came; armed with knives. That must have been horrific for those girls to wait not knowing their loved ones streghtening the few soldiers left in the Golan to a victory the next morning. The Syrian soldiers to their credit would not all fight against the Israeli’s with women mixed in. Much of the aversion to women in combat comes from US Army studies about what happened on the Golan, when the Syrians were captured, those women and sisters who filled the defender’s ranks literally murdered prisioners becasue of the fight/flight/fear factor that was uncontrollable for some of the women. Today we dismiss the emotional component of women.
I have problems with “kill your children,kill your little brothers and sisters lest they be captured” and the Commanment against murder.
The ramp was actually constructed on top of existing terrain, and may have been a reiteration of a ramp used during the construction of the palace decades before. The Romans didn’t take two years to do anything like this.
The final siege and storming of the place followed the construction of a wall around the entire site to prevent resupply or escape, then the ramp. The entire process took about three months.
The ostraca — apparently used during the drawing of the lots — were found in modern excavations.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnsylee/5426818553
The Josephus Problem
https://search.brave.com/search?q=josephus+problem+math
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.