Israel. Masada fortress

Masada is an ancient fortress on a nearly vertical rock in the Judean Desert. Masada is surrounded by steep cliffs on all sides, and there are several routes leading to its entrance. We ascended the most beautiful one, known as the "Runner's Path"...

Route map...

The "Runner's Path" was built to serve the runners who delivered messages to the Romans from the eastern camps at the foot of the mountain to the western ones...

Views of the Judean Desert...

The path runs along the right side of the rock on which Masada is located... The fortress is situated on the highest peak behind us...

Views from the ridge...

After climbing the ridge, we continued our ascent to the fortress along a path laid over an artificial ramp built by the Romans... Many tourists who approached Masada from the western side also used this path...

Entrance to the fortress...

Rest areas after the climb...

The fortress is surrounded by the picturesque mountains of the desert...

In 25 BC, King Herod the Great built a refuge for himself and his family, significantly strengthening and expanding the existing Hasmonean-period fortress built between 37-31 BC. The fortress stored many food and weapon supplies, had an ingenious water supply system, and baths modeled after Roman ones. The fortress was also used to store the king's gold...

Masada is surrounded by steep cliffs on all sides. Only from the sea side does a narrow, so-called snake path lead upward. The top of the rock is capped by a nearly flat trapezoidal plateau, approximately 600 by 300 meters in size. The plateau is surrounded by mighty fortress walls about 1400 meters long and on average about 4 meters thick, with 37 towers built into them. Palaces, a synagogue, armories, and storage facilities for weapons were also built on the plateau, pits for collecting and storing rainwater were arranged, and auxiliary buildings were erected...

To this day, the fortress retains the large palace of King Herod near the western entrance, the remains of Herod's three-tiered palace built on terraces (northern side of the complex), a synagogue, mosaic fragments, water reservoirs cut into the rocks, and cold and hot baths...

In 70 AD, after the Roman legions captured Jerusalem, Masada became the last stronghold of the rebels. The defenders of the fortress numbered barely a thousand people, including women and children, but they managed to hold Masada for almost three more years. About nine thousand Roman slaves built roads and carried earth to construct a siege ramp around the fortress and platforms for siege engines and a battering ram to finally capture the fortress... From the fortress, one can clearly see the location of one of the Roman camps...

Descending to the lower tier of the three-tiered palace, we saw quite well-preserved columns of the palace, which was allocated for the king's guests...