Masada- Fact or Fiction ?

[Jona Lendering]

So there was wood?

There was a Herodian palace and I guess that the roof must have been supported by large beams.

[Ebusitanus]

Because there are bones of pigs on top of the hill.

Which could have been, for all we know, the remains of the main course of the roman victory celebration party after the burning of the suicided corpses with the roof of the herodian palace. :wink:

[Jona Lendering]

Which could have been, for all we know, the remains of the main course of the roman victory celebration party after the burning of the suicided corpses with the roof of the herodian palace. :wink:

Taking a joke serious: the Romans and Greeks did not sacrifice pigs, nor was this a favorite celebration meal. Nor did the Romans like pigs for their obvious use - to clean cities (pigs eat left-overs, food remains, and even dirt). The Romans preferred dogs (e.g., Suetonius, Vespasian, 5.4).

As far as I can tell, the pigs on Masada show that there were orientals on top of the rock, cleaning their village in oriental fashion. But perhaps Roman soldiers had in the meantime discovered the use of pigs too. And perhaps the pigs were just there because they were the totem animal of X Fretensis.

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

was Masada used after the rebellion?

[Jona Lendering]

There is some evidence for a Roman garrison, if I recall correctly, and a Byzantine church.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

and recent investigation has posed that the siege wall (rampart) built by the Romans which is still visible was actually based on a natural extension of the Masada cliff itself.

M.VIB.M.

[sicarii sam]

yeah, I read some geologists analyze it . What if CSI did an episode on it ? haha

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

then they should do an episode on the blood stained floors and skeletal remains with long hair with the child skeleton next to it which made the achaeologists weep.................

did they by any chance ever find the remails of the catapulta/onager victims which were supposedly shot towards the ramparts by the Romans?

hello, we have some family here that would like to visit you!

IACITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHA

M.VIB.M.

[Robert Vermaat]

I personally think the Romans DID clean up the site after the siege.

Maybe you are right, but are there parallels for Romans burying their enemies? As far as I know, the bodies of the first battle of Cremona remained unburied.

But was Masada not a military post for s hort time? I mean, it would be unwise to station troops somewhere ansd not bury the bodies. Leaving them lying around would not serve much purpose, with all those folks seeing them, I mean it was a rock in the desert..

[D B Campbell]

a recent investigation has posed that the siege wall (rampart) built by the Romans which is still visible was actually based on a natural extension of the Masada cliff itself.

The article is available here for $30!

Of course, the geologist Dan Gill was simply confirming what had been known since the 1930s, when the siege expert Adolf Schulten visited the site with General Adolf Lammerer. Lammerer suspected that the Romans had built the framework of their embankment onto an existing spur, jutting from the side of Masada.

(If you're really keen, see: A. Lammerer, "Der Angriffsdamm", in A. Schulten, "Masada", Zeitschr. des Deutschen Palaestina-Vereins 56, 1933, pp. 167-171.)

[Petra Rocks]

Not knowing a whole lot about Masada, I must ask, did the people on top of the hill likely suffer many casualties at the end of the siege? At Roman hands I mean. If so and we can't find their bodies either, then any suicides probably went wherever they did. If not, then we still don't know I guess.

[Felix]

Which could have been, for all we know, the remains of the main course of the roman victory celebration party after the burning of the suicided corpses with the roof of the herodian palace. :wink:

Taking a joke serious: the Romans and Greeks did not sacrifice pigs, nor was this a favorite celebration meal. Nor did the Romans like pigs for their obvious use - to clean cities (pigs eat left-overs, food remains, and even dirt). The Romans preferred dogs (e.g., Suetonius, Vespasian, 5.4).

As far as I can tell, the pigs on Masada show that there were orientals on top of the rock, cleaning their village in oriental fashion. But perhaps Roman soldiers had in the meantime discovered the use of pigs too. And perhaps the pigs were just there because they were the totem animal of X Fretensis.

I have recently stumbled across a reference in the First Book of Macabees about the sacrifice of pigs. It seems that this may have been a deliberate act by the Gentiles to desecrate a site which was special (or may have been special) to the Jews. At the least, the writer of the Book of Macabees thought that the Seleucids thought so.

"44 For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land,

45 And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days:

46 And pollute the sanctuary and holy people:

47 Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts:

48 That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation:

49 To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances.

50 And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die. "

[Jona Lendering]

Erich Bickerman argued, and I think correctly, that the edict was composed by the high priest himself, who wanted to modernize/hellenize is country. Circumcision was outlawed, et cetera. To break the opposition, he included this decree too.

Perhaps he deliberately wanted to provoke the conservatives, who would try to have it revoked, and find out that they were powerless, which would mean the end of the opposition; alternatively, he wanted to include something that he could easily concede (and keep what he really wanted) (cf. bargaining techniques in a modern suq).

In the end, the conservatives were stronger than he was.

[Felix]

The source of the edict may have been different, but it suggests that the idea of leaving dead pigs lying around may have been a very deliberate religious/political gesture by the authorities against pious Jews. This would perhaps explain why the bones were so conspicuously there - if they had been sacrificed and then disposed off, the defilement would not have been so obvious.

[Jona Lendering]

This would perhaps explain why the bones were so conspicuously there

Do you know at Masada? I do not recall that they were conspicuously left at Masada, but I may be wrong.