A new museum confronts an old mystery at Masada

Haaretz ^ | Wed., July 11, 2007 Tamuz 25, 5767 | By Danny Rubinstein

[Fred Nerks]

A new museum confronts an old mystery at Masada

The exhibit at the end of the tour of the new museum at Masada consists of 11 tiny sherds bearing intriguing names.

Hundreds of inscriptions on sherds were found at Masada, including some on earthenware jugs. Some are only a single letters, others contain names and numbers from the days of the rebellion and the Roman siege. The archaeologists, in particular Yigael Yadin, were reasonably good at decipher the inscriptions on the various sherds, but the inscription on these 11 sherds was unusual.

They were all found in the same place, next to the network of internal gates that controlled the passage to the foodstores, and were not scattered over a wide area like the other sherds. They were all written in the same handwriting, and each sherd contained only one name.

Most important, the names were not regular names but rather nicknames, such as Ben Hanahatam (or Ben Hanahtum), Tzayda (or Hatzayad, "the hunter"), Ha'amaki (someone from a village in the Acre area). Among them was one well-known name - Ben-Yair, the name of the leader of the Masada rebellion, Elazar Ben-Yair.

When these sherds were found, Yigael Yadin came up with the theory that this was evidence of the terrible story of the mass suicide on the top of Masada.

The historian Josephus gave a detailed description of the words Ben-Yair used to persuade the almost 1,000 people entrenched there "to do a useful deed."

"We shall die before becoming slaves to our enemies, we shall take leave of life while we are still free men, together with our children and our wives," he reportedly said.

After embracing their wives and kissing their babies as their eyes filled with tears, the men chose from among them 10 men...

[Fred Nerks]

When these sherds were found, Yigael Yadin came up with the theory that this was evidence of the terrible story of the mass suicide on the top of Masada.

[Bender2]

“Masada shall not fall again!”

I just hope this IDF pledge stays true...

Current events and politicians make me fearful it will not..

[SkyDancer]

Saw the movie Masada filmed I think in the 1960’s .... very emotional ..... what’s the expression “Live Free Or Die” ....

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***They were all found in the same place, next to the network of internal gates that controlled the passage to the foodstores, and were not scattered over a wide area like the other sherds. They were all written in the same handwriting, and each sherd contained only one name. ****

Perhaps they were meal tickets for the obtaining of food from the stores.

[Fred Nerks]

Are the names that appear on the 11 sherds the nicknames of those 10 men, under the command of Ben-Yair, who were the last to remain alive? Did they use these sherds to draw lots and find the last of their members who would finish off the matter of the massacre? This is a possibility but apparently we will never know.

[Fred Nerks]

The story of Masada survives in the writings of Josephus. But not many Jews read Josephus, and for well over fifteen hundred years, it was a more or less forgotten episode in Jewish history. Then, in the 1920s, the Hebrew writer Isaac Lamdan wrote "Masada," a poetic history of the anguished Jewish fight against a world full of enemies.

According to Professor David Roskies, Lamdan's poem, "more than any other text, later inspired the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto." In recent years, Masada became widely known through the excavations of the late Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin. In addition to finding two mikvaot (ritual baths) and a synagogue used by Masada's defenders, he uncovered twenty-five skeletons of men, women, and children. In 1969, they were buried at Masada with full military honors.

[Fred Nerks]

In the area in front of the northern palace, eleven small ostraca were uncovered, each bearing a single name. One reads "ben Yair" and could be short for Eleazar ben Yair, the commander of the fortress. It has been suggested that the other ten names are those of the men chosen by lot to kill the others and then themselves, as recounted by Josephus

[SunkenCiv]

probably dead links, I didn't check:

Masada Ramp Was Not a Roman Engineering Miracle
by Dan Gill
Biblical Archaeology Review

We cannot use Josephus's description to reconstruct the layout and dimensions of the ramp. First, the heights given by him for the ramp (200 cubits, or 300 feet), the stone platform at the top of the ramp (50 cubits, or 75 feet) and the siege tower (60 cubits, or 90 feet) are wrong. Josephus's figures add up to 310 cubits (465 feet), while the actual difference in height between the top of Masada's defensive wall and the base of the spur is only 315 feet. Also, at the top of the spur there is not enough room for a 75-foot-wide platform, as Josephus claims, and no remains of large masonry blocks, of which the platform was allegedly built, can be found nearby. It is more reasonable to assume, as already suggested by Lammerer, that the installations on the spur included only a ramp and a tower, without a stone platform.

Masada wheel may be from Roman tower
by Arieh O'Sullivan
Jerusalem Post

Archeologists at Masada have uncovered a solid wooden wheel dating from the Great Jewish Revolt exactly at the spot where Roman war machines broke through nearly 2,000 years ago. Led by Hebrew University archeologist Prof. Ehud Netzer, the team at first uncovered Byzantine ruins. While officials were hesitant to say if the find was part of the ironclad Roman siege tower rolled up a ramp to breach the fortress wall, the discovery raised excitement among archeologists and park officials, who see it as rare piece of solid evidence that further confirms the story of the ancient mountaintop fortress. According to the historian Josephus, the Romans built a gigantic assault ramp up the side of the mountain. On top of this a siege tower, covered in iron, was erected from which the Romans planned to attack the Jews holding out on the mountaintop.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam for the link, Fred Nerks for the topic.

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[ZULU]

Sounds pretty convincing to me.

[Judith Anne]

This story always gives me goosebumps. What magnificent people! What courageous soldiers!

[colorado tanker]

An amazing story, illustrating the strength of man’s yearning to be free.

[WoofDog123]

“An amazing story, illustrating the strength of man’s yearning to be free.
“

or at least to avoid what fate awaited them and their families at the hands of the Romans. They didn’t do PC back then.

[SkyDancer]

sort of like the version of the short straw but times ten ... maybe they were put into an urn and names drawn one at a time????

[Cincinna]

Thanks for the update on this magnificent, inspirational story of courage and devotion to Freedom.