Masada

Two weeks from now, I shall start on my long-awaited trip to Lutherland. You may know that next year, the Protestant world celebrates the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, so it seemed wise to visit Wittenberg on the eve of all those religio-cultural activities. 

However, not only the city wherein 1517 Luther "nailed" his 95 Theses on the door of the Schlosskirche demanding reforms of the almighty Catholic Church is worth a blog, but other cities in Lutherland like Erfurt, Leipzig, Weimar, and Luther's birthplace Eisleben too.

Meanwhile, I must hurry up to finish my promised two photo blogs of the Holy Land, starting with Masada.

Heading by bus through a desert southeast
to visit Masada, Israel's national shrine.

Approaching the Dead Sea

Willkommen next-to-last at a shopping stop

Outside the shop, beautiful blossoms on bushes caught our eye.

In the year 73, Fort Masada became the last resort for the Jewish revolt when the uprising against the Roman occupation that had started in 66 was finally quashed in ruins and blood. To clean out the last Jewish stronghold, the tenth legion stationed in Jerusalem and reinforced by 6000 auxiliary forces was dispatched to Masada under the command of Flavius Silva.

The high plateau of Masada is on the right, and the National Museum is on the left.
This access was barred for the Romans and is for us.

German cartographers noted Turm, Kaserne, and  Kirche

A few people walked, but most took the cable car.

Our guide, Johannes, showed us: 40.1% relative humidity
 at 30.1 degrees Celsius on the plateau.

While the Roman task force approached Masada, the Jewish occupants of the plateau were transforming the former palace compounds of King Herod the Great into fortifications.

The remains of Herod's north palace

The only way for the Romans to conquer the high plain was to build a ramp. However, several attempts to break into the Jewish fortifications failed, but they eventually succeeded with well-known Roman tenacity. They retired for the evening, with their final assault scheduled the following morning.

The remainder of the Roman ramp

When the Jewish commander Elessar Ben-Jair saw that he and the remaining 960 Jews were doomed, he convinced his countrymen and -women to die by their own hands rather than be violated and slaughtered by the infidel Romans. The encircled Jews selected ten men by lot who were to first kill all the other men, women, and children and then themselves. Josephus Flavius writes in his history of the First Jewish-Roman War: Then the ten having unswervingly slaughtered all ordained the same rule of the lot for one another, that he on whom it fell should first slay the nine and then himself last of all.

These last ten lots bear the names of the last ten men.

Roman mosaic

The ruins of the Byzantine church are sketched above.

Driving to the bathing area along the Dead Sea.
What you see along the shoreline are no whitecaps but salt deposits.

The moment Red Baron had and possibly you have been waiting for.

The water at the only place where swimming was allowed was dirty, and so were my feet after walking on muddy salt crusts while going into deeper water. Once afloat, you must be careful not to get water into your eyes and mouth. Keeping this in mind, it is impossible to stand up. You can get one foot on the ground but not the other. Luckily there are many people around you to help.

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