Dan Snow's History Hit - Besieging Masada

Episode Date: February 17, 2021

Dramatically placed on a plateau with drops of 400m to the east and 90m to the west, Masada translates from Hebrew as fortress. It became just that when Herod the Great built a magnificent palace complex upon it between 37 and 31 BC, the remains of which are in fantastic shape today. But the site isn’t only notable for its connection to the bible-famed King of Judaea. Masada was also the stronghold of some of the survivors of a Jewish revolt and, in response, the locus of a Roman siege in the early 70s AD. For this first of two parts, Tristan, from our sibling podcast The Ancients, spoke to Jodi Magness from the University of North Carolina. Jodi co-directed the 1995 excavations of the Roman siege works at Masada, and in this episode, she tells Tristan about the archaeological findings at the site, many of which are still visible to the untrained eye.Jodi is the author of 'Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth'.Part 2, which focuses on the fall of Masada, the myths and the siege's legacy, is available here.

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Sitting in the south of Israel on top of an isolated rocky plateau overlooking the Dead Sea 10 or so miles away is the extraordinary fortress of Masada.

It is one of the greatest historical sites that I've ever visited. It means in Hebrew fortress and Herod the Great built one of the great fortresses of history on top of there around 2,000 years ago. It became infamous for the final stand of the Jews that were fighting Roman power in the 70s AD. The Romans reduced their stronghold, besieged it, deploying unimaginable resources and cruelty to stamp out the Jewish rebellion. In this episode of the podcast, we are inviting our sibling podcast, The Ancients, to come on. Tristan talks to Jodie Magnus from the University of North Carolina. She co-directed the 1995 excavations of the Roman siege works at Masada. And I wanted to bring this one to a wide audience because I'm a particular fan of Masada. It

occupies a very special place in my own history. I visited there with my family when I was in my early teens. And it was a beautiful desert morning as we started climbing up. And it was a day that I'll always remember as I slightly kind of outgrew my family because I raced the top all by myself. And on the top, I watched a young group of Israeli army cadets visit and swear their oath that Masada would never fall again as my parents were trailing up with my younger siblings. And I think from that moment, I realized that I loved history. I loved visiting these extraordinary places where history had been made, and I also loved the interplay between history and the present. Why do these sites still mean so much to people living, well, thousands of years after the events that occurred at them?

Ever since then, I've been traveling the world, I've been making history programs and making these podcasts, and a lot of it is inspired by that day as a kid going to Masada. I've never been back. And so this podcast in a lovely Proustian way brought back so many memories and feelings from that day. Thank you very much to Tristan and Jodie for doing that. You can go and listen to part two of this podcast, Tristan did a double episode on Masada, on the Ancients feed. You head over to wherever you get your pods, you type in the Ancients, and you get some serious, serious podcasting content for people that love the ancient world, for whom history here is far

too general. You're not interested in the 18th century. You don't care about the 20th century. You just want to get ancient. I understand that. So go and check out that wonderful podcast. If you want to watch TV or listen to all the episodes of all the podcasts we produce over at History Hit, you just go to historyhit.tv. You sign up. Lots of people doing it now that we've relaunched. The app works a lot better on Android, on Amazon, on Roku.

It's working better on people's phones. So I'm glad everyone's signing up and doing that. It's great. Just head over to historyhit.tv. And thank you very much for joining the revolution anyway here is Tristan talking to Jodie Magnus Jodie it is great to have you on the show thank you for having me not at all this is an amazing topic Masada this remarkable ancient stronghold and your archaeological work at the site.

Can we say it's been sorting the fact from the fiction about this epic tale? Wow, I think that's a lot to say. But yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that we do with archaeology is to try to add information about the past from a new source. And so I don't know about fact from fiction. But certainly certainly at least some of my work and the work of others has helped to shed new light on what we know about Masada and what we know about the period of Masada. You've been shedding amazing new light on Masada. There we go. Well, let's dive into the background first of all, and no such thing as a silly question. Where and what is Masada? Well, I think that's actually where you absolutely have to start. Not everybody will necessarily be familiar with it. But anyway, Masada is a mountain located on the southwest shore of the Dead Sea.

It is interesting because its name Masada in Hebrew means fort or fortress, because it is a natural fortress. It's a mountain that is separated from all the other mountains around it on all sides, which means it has very steep cliffs going all the way around. That makes it very hard to get up to the top. And so already 2,000 years ago, its potential as a fortress was recognized first by the descendants of the Maccabees, the people who are celebrated for the holiday of Hanukkah. So they were the first ones to fortify the top of it. And then around the time of Jesus, King Herod the Great fortified it and built palaces on top. And people who go to Masada today, most of what they see is what Herod built on top of that mountain.

I mean, that's the point where I really would like to start this because we think perhaps of the siege of Masada is perhaps one of the most famous events associated with this rock in the desert. But as you say, the man who really turns this into a fortress is that famous name from the Bible, Herod. the archaeological remains, there are different phases of archaeological remains on top of Masada, but the two major phases that we have are the period of Herod the Great. So that's Herod ruled Judea from 40 BC until his death in 4 BC. So he's the one who really built the majority of what you see on top of the mountain today, fortification system, two large palaces, smaller palaces, all sorts of ancillary buildings, storerooms for food, cisterns for water, all sorts of stuff like that, workshops. So most of what you see today dates to the time of Herod the Great. And then another major phase in terms of both the remains and people's interest is what happens 70 years after Herod's death in the year 66 AD, when the first Jewish

revolt broke out against the Romans and Jewish rebels took over the top of the mountain and stayed there for the duration of the revolt. And what happens at the end of their occupation on the top of Masada is really the focus of most of the so-called Masada myth. Absolutely. And we'll definitely get onto that in a second. But Jodie, first of all, just keeping on Herod just a bit longer, because the archaeological remains on the top of Masada, does it really emphasise this monumental building programme which he undertook across the whole of his kingdom? Yeah, I think you're right. Masada is probably, if not the best known, then certainly one of the best known palaces of Herod. Here,

I'm just going to use the word palace. Basically, what Herod did at Masada was to build a palace system where he could spend the winter when it got cold in Jerusalem or take refuge if the Jews happened to rise up and revolt against him. It's in a remote location, so it was well protected. It's in a remote location, so it was well protected. But in fact, Herod built a lot of palaces around his kingdom, a lot. And so in a way, you're right. You know, most people who are not archaeologists, at least, if they visit Israel, will tend to visit, you know, maybe one or two of Herod's palaces. And usually one of them is going to be the system on top of Masada.

So certainly it's a very good example. And I think what strikes most visitors to Masada when they do see Herod's palaces, there is not just the size of the buildings, but the decoration. It's amazing that in the middle of the desert, you see Herod decorating his palaces in the latest Roman fashion, whether it's with beautiful mosaic floors or wall paintings. I mean, no expense was spared, even in this remote desert location. Now, remarkable as that is, let's go on then to the main event, shall we say, the siege of Masada. And you touched on it just now, Jodie, the context, the background to how the Jewish rebels

get to Masada. So it's 72 or 73 AD. And as you say, this is right at the end of the first Jewish war. So what happens is that 70 years after Herod died, this Jewish revolt breaks out against Rome, which we call the first Jewish revolt against Rome. And it ends officially in the year 70, four years after it breaks out, when the Romans managed to take Jerusalem after a prolonged siege, and they destroy the city and they destroy the temple on the Temple Mount, which is the second temple. And at that point, that's the official end of the revolt. The Romans go back, they celebrate their victory against the Jews and all of that. But after the fall of Jerusalem in 70, there remained three former palace fortresses of Herod the Great that were still holding out in the hands

of Jewish rebels. And one of them was Masada. There are two others. One is Machairus, which is in Jordan today on the east side of the Dead Sea. Very interesting. That's the site where, according to tradition, Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, had John the Baptist beheaded. So that's a very interesting site. So that's one of the three. And then the third one, which is also very interesting, is a site called Herodium near Bethlehem, which is the only palace or site that Herod named after himself because he built it in preparation for it serving as his final resting place when he died. And in fact, he was buried there when he died and his tomb was discovered there in 2007.

So that's really interesting. So all three sites are really interesting. But those three sites continue to hold out in the hands of Jewish rebels after the fall of Jerusalem in 70. And what the Romans then do is send troops to mop up, if you wish, right? This was cleaning up operations, getting the last little stragglers. And so they send forces to take these three fortresses. And the first that they marched against was Herodium, which fell apparently without much of any fight at all. Then they marched against Machairus, where there was a siege, but the rebels there surrendered before the siege ended.

And finally, either in the year 72 or 73, there's a debate about the chronology. The Romans arrived at the foot of Masada, which then is the last fortress still holding out against Rome in the hands of Jewish rebels. So that sort of sets up the story of the siege. And talking about story and the narrative and the literary source for this, because Jodie, there is one key literary source that we do have for this period in history. Yes. Our main source, actually our only source for the siege of Masada, Yes. Our main source, actually our only source for the siege of Masada, is the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, who his original name in Hebrew was Joseph, son of Manathias. But eventually he adopts a Roman name and he becomes known as Flavius Josephus, or Josephus for short.

And he lived at the time of the revolt. He actually was one of the Jews put in charge of one of the districts, Galilee, at the time the revolt broke out. So he was not present at the siege of Masada, but he's a firsthand witness to the revolt. And after the revolt ended, and Josephus has a long personal history we can go into, but anyway, after the revolt ended, he wrote a couple of very important history books about the Jewish people. And one of them is the story of the revolt. It's called The Jewish War. It's a massive seven-volume account of the revolt, and it ends with the story of the fall of Masada. And so he is our most important source of information. We do have other sources of information about this period, not Masada in particular, but about the revolt and about this period. For example, the Roman historian Tacitus describes the siege of Jerusalem in 70. Of course, the New Testament

contains little bits and pieces of things, right? So we have other sources, but Josephus is by far the most comprehensive and important source. I mean, Jodie, that's absolutely brilliant that we have this one source which tells us the account, but combining that with, as we're about to go on to, the astonishing archaeology that survives from the site of Masada and around it, that I'm guessing allows figures like yourself to corroborate Josephus's account. Right. So look, this is one of the things that's controversial, right? How reliable is Josephus? And so the controversies about how reliable Josephus is, was he really telling the truth or was he fabricating parts of the story or putting a spin on? He certainly put

a spin. No matter how reliable you think Josephus is, there's no doubt that he had a bias, that he presents things in a biased way, both to exonerate himself from what happened during the revolt and also to sometimes whitewash the Romans' role in what happened. So there's no doubt that Josephus has spins on things, but there's a difference between spinning and completely fabricating. And so the thing about Masada and the story of the fall of Masada, and here I'm just talking about the fall of the mountain. So the Jews occupied at the beginning of the revolt, you have Jewish rebels, you know, taking it over. And then in the year 72 or 73, the Romans arrive at the foot of the mountain and there's

a siege and the mountain falls. Josephus is our only ancient source on the siege and fall of Masada. He's the only one. We don't have any other ancient authors that tell us the story of the fall of Masada. And there are questions about why is this so? For example, why didn't a Roman author like Tacitus, for example, talk about the siege of Masada. And there are questions about why is this so? For example, why didn't a Roman author like Tacitus, for example, talk about the siege of Masada? So there are different theories about that. One possibility is that somebody like other Roman authors wouldn't have wanted to glorify what happened at Masada, especially when you consider that the Romans were ruling over

lots of different native peoples who weren't all necessarily happy living under Roman rule. But another possibility, and I actually think this is the case, in the eyes of the Romans, Masada was just a mop-up operation. It was a very minor episode for them. And so it wasn't actually worth telling about. So that may be why Josephus, but at any rate, Josephus is our only source. And what that means is we don't have another source, at least in writing, another literary source that can either confirm or deny the veracity of what Josephus writes. And that's where archaeology comes in, right? So the question is, to what extent can archaeology either prove or disprove the historicity of Josephus' account or the

accuracy of it? And here, most of the debate has focused on what happens at the very end. So the Romans come and they besiege the site. And if you go to Masada today, you can still see the Roman siege works. So there's no doubt that there was a siege at Masada. There's no doubt that the Romans arrived at the foot of Masada. They set up a siege. They build an assault ramp. They get their battering ramp to the top. There's no doubt that there was a siege. There is a little bit of disagreement, and I think it's not well-founded, about whether the siege actually ended before the Jews surrendered. Most of the controversy focuses on the very end of the siege,

whether Josephus's report that the Jews committed mass suicide or not is accurate. Because according to Josephus, the Jews holding out on top of is accurate. Because according to Josephus, the Jews holding out on top of the mountain, and according to him, there were 967 men, women, and children at that point. So according to Josephus, they all decided they'd rather die at their own hand and commit mass suicide than give themselves up alive to the Romans. And so most of the controversy is focused on whether that part of Josephus' story is accurate or not. We'll definitely get onto that in due course. There's so much archaeology, stunning archaeology that survives. But before really going into that, Jodie,

why does so much archaeology survive at the site of Masada? Well, I think there are two reasons. Number one, it's in the middle of the desert. It's in a remote location. And so it's not like Jerusalem or Caesarea or something like that, where you have continuous occupation for hundreds or even thousands of years. So it wasn't like people came and kept building on the same spot. And every time you build over it, you know, parts of it get destroyed or whatever. So there's that. And then because it's in the desert, the buildings tend to be constructed of stone rather than perishable materials like you would get in an analogous European site. You would have things made of wood or sod and those materials don't survive after a couple of thousand years. And then basically the archaeological site was untouched until the middle of the 20th century. archaeological site was untouched until the middle of the 20th century. So I think that's the reason why there's so much well-preserved archaeology there, so to speak. So you mentioned that quite

a lot of it is constructed out of stone. So Jodie, when the Romans do arrive outside of Masada, what do they start constructing? What buildings? Yeah, so it's really interesting. The top of Masada was excavated in the middle of the 1960s by a very famous Israeli archaeologist named Yiga El Yedin. And Yedin himself was interested in warfare, the art of warfare. He wrote a master's thesis on it, ancient warfare. He was chief of staff of the Israeli army at some point in his career. And so what's so interesting is that when he excavated at Masada, he chose not to focus on the siege works at the base of the mountain, but rather

on the top of the mountain, because he was actually interested in the Jewish remains, so to speak, associated with the time of the revolt. And so the remains at the foot of the mountain were basically untouched until more or less, I mean, Yadin did a teeny bit of stuff, but more or less untouched until 1995, when I a teeny bit of stuff, but more or less untouched until 1995, when I had the privilege of co-directing excavations in the siege works. So what's so wonderful and so interesting about the siege works is that precisely because they're intact, basically, they're built of non-perishable materials in the middle of the desert and were never touched, it gives us a really good opportunity

to learn about how the Roman army conducted a siege when they were in the field. And so what we see at the base of Masada is a sort of standard operating procedure for the Roman army in, let's say, the latter part of the first century AD. And one of the things to remember about the Roman army, and I know you're over in Britain and you guys love the Roman army. I mean, you guys have lots of people who just do this. We've got our bit of Roman history. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it's not as big a thing in the United States, I have to tell you. But anyway, so the operating procedure in this period was when you conducted a siege in the field, the first thing that you want to do is, or one of the first things you want to do is you want to isolate the besieged. You want to make sure that the site that you are

besieging, you've cut it off, the people can't escape, nobody can get in and help them. And so you build a siege wall around the outside of the site. And that's what the Romans did at Masada for a distance of about 4,000 yards, which is amazing. Going completely around the base of the mountain, they built a circumvallation wall, which originally was 10 to 12 feet high. It's built of stone. And it had towers along the flat areas where guards could be posted to make sure nobody was trying to escape or climb over the wall. So that's one part of the siege works. And then another thing was, of course, that the Romans had to house their soldiers once they set up the siege. So they built eight camps surrounding the base of Masada, which we label with letters A through H. And these are distributed in very strategic ways. So everything that the Roman army did was,

there's nothing that's casual. Everything has a reason. So each one of the camps is placed in its position for a particular reason. And the camps, basically, most of them are guarding potential routes of escape from the mountain, for example. The two legionary camps, basically, most of them are guarding potential routes of escape from the mountain, for example. The two legionary camps, there are two camps that are bigger than the others that were the camps that housed the members of the 10th Legion, which is the Legion that participated in the Siege of Masada. So those camps are placed so that one on the east side, Camp B, controls the supply lines going in and out, which were being brought in mostly by way of the Dead Sea offloaded on a dock to the east of the site.

So you have Camp B, which is one of those two legionary camps, which was sort of where the supplies were going through. And then on the northwest side of the mountain is the other main legionary camp, Camp F, which is positioned so that the commander, Flavia Silva, would be able to oversee the assault ramp, which the Romans built up the western side of the commander, Flavia Silva, would be able to oversee the assault ramp, which the Romans built up the western side of the mountain, because if they were going to actually take the mountain, which is what they did ultimately, they had to get siege machinery to the top of the mountain to break through Herod's fortification wall. And that meant getting a battering ram up to the top, and they needed an assault ramp in order to be able to do that. So those are the

basic. And then, of course, you have the assault ramp, as I mentioned, which is after they set up the initial siege works, then you get the construction of the assault ramp. There are cases where in a siege, depending on the conditions, the Romans might have sat back and waited for the besieged to run out of food and water to starve them into surrender. Once you cut off the site, nobody can get in or out. They can't get supplies. This is actually something that happened a little bit to the north of Masada in the next Jewish revolt against the Romans, the second Jewish revolt, the Bar Kokhba revolt, where Jews from the village of En Gedi hid out in a couple of caves on the sides of a canyon called Nachal Hever. And they were discovered by Roman troops who

simply set up camps at the edge of the cliffs, and the Jewish families inside those caves could not escape, and they ended up starving to death inside the caves. And that's sometimes what the Romans did. And by the way, very coincidentally, those caves were excavated by Yigael Yedin. But at any rate, in the case of Masada, though, the strategy of simply starving them into surrender wasn't going to work because when the Jewish rebels took over the mountain at the beginning of the revolt, they found all of those storerooms with food that Herod had provisioned still full of food and the cisterns that Her approximately 8,000 soldiers. It depends on who you follow. But anyway, approximately 8,000 soldiers at the base of the mountain plus servants and slaves and pack animals and camp hangers on and all of that. And they had to provision them with food and water every day. And they're in the middle of the desert. And there are no sources of food and water in the immediate vicinity. So the supply, you know, supplying the troops at Masada at the base of the mountain was certainly one of the big logistical challenges that the Romans faced and precisely the reason why as soon as they got to the foot of the mountain, they started setting up the siege works, but also undoubtedly planning to assault the mountain, to take the mountain and not simply wait and starve the besieged into surrender like they might have in some other situations. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We've got an episode of

The Ancients, our sibling podcast, and we're talking all about Masada more after this. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories,

listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth

explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs, and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. And keeping on that logistics then, Jodie, and focusing on communication. So let's say Silver, the commander, he wanted to get a message to those at the other legionary camp on the other side, saying he wants them to bring some troops over for an attack on the stronghold. How would he go about doing that? Right. So the logistical part is actually really interesting. So when you go to

Masada today, you can still see, you don't have to be an archaeologist. It's very clear. You stand on top of the mountain, you look down, you can see the siege works. You can see the outlines of the camps. You can see the siege wall, the circumvallation wall. And as you stand there on top of the mountain, if you look, you'll see running alongside the circumvallation wall is a path. It completely encircles the base of the mountain. And it's called today the runner's path. And you can still walk along it today. I have many times. And it's an ancient path. That path is the line of communication between the camps because in antiquity, there was no field telephone or walkie-talkie. So your question is

exactly right. How did Flavia Silva, who would have probably spent most of his time in Camp F, how would he have gotten his commands to all of the other troops in the other camps? And the answer is that he would have sent out slaves or runners whose job it was to run from camp to camp along that path. And this, by the way, is a system that was used right up into the 20th century. And I'm thinking of that 1984 film, Peter Ware film, Gallipoli, about the famous battle, you know, World War I battle, where a very young Mel Gibson plays a runner just like this in that battle, right, at that site. So in fact, this was a system that was used right up into modern times within, you know, the last 100 years. And so we do see that at Masada.

It is remarkable how that level of archaeology survives, whether it's the layout of the camps, whether it's the circumvallation, whether looking at where these camps are. And you mentioned that vital role of logistics, getting supplies in from the Dead Sea and all that. That's absolutely extraordinary. And you mentioned one camp in particular just there, Camp F. Jodie, you in particular have done quite a lot of work on excavations at this camp. Right. So in the summer of 1995, I had the privilege of being invited to co-direct the first and until now really only excavations in the summer of 1995, I had the privilege of being invited to co-direct the first and until now really only excavations in the Roman siege works at Masada with three Israeli colleagues. And we spent six weeks working in the siege works. And now, so six weeks isn't a lot of

time actually in archaeology. And so we decided to focus our attention on one camp. And we wanted to excavate one of the legionary camps. And of the two legionary camps, B and F, F is the better preserved one. So we decided to focus our attention on Camp F. We also, by the way, cut a section through the ramp, the assault ramp, to see how it was constructed, which was very interesting. interesting. And so, yes, so I worked there for six weeks that summer. And ultimately, in archaeology, we divide up responsibility. So I had three other co-directors. And my responsibility was one of my fields of specialization is pottery, ancient pottery. So I ultimately published the pottery from Camp F. But our excavations were really interesting. And one of the things about excavating a camp like this is, in this case, before we even started excavating, we kind of knew what to expect. The camps had been surveyed previously, but never excavated. In fact, one of your very own fellow Brits, Ian Richmond, published a very important survey of the siege camps at Masada. So we actually had a lot of information already. And because the

Roman army operated in such a standardized manner, you know where things are going to be located because they laid out camps in the same way. The same units were located in the same part of the camp relative to each other. And you can see that in Camp F. So we actually chose where to excavate in Camp F with the idea that we kind of knew what to expect. And I have to say, there weren't any huge surprises in that regard. Like we didn't find the commander's unit was somewhere where it shouldn't be, for example. But it was actually very interesting. And one of the things that was so interesting to me was if you go to Mulsada today and you either stand on top of the mountain and look down at the siege camps, or you walk around

the siege camps, it looks very barren. It looks like just basically a rocky area. It doesn't look like you're going to find anything. So I was really surprised when we started excavating in these units. And when I say units, they're basically barracks, right? But I don't like to use the word barracks because barrack makes people think of something that's actually constructed. And what you have at Masada are low stone walls that were maybe three to four feet high that were the bases for pitched leather tents, because when the Romans conducted a siege in the field, they lived in tents. And so that's what we have. So the units are actually tent units. They're barracks, but they're tent units.

But when you excavate inside the area of these sort of low stone walls that were the bases for pitched tents, they were just covered with layers of broken pottery. So it wasn't actually barren like I expected it. And the pottery consisted overwhelmingly of storage jars. So basically what the Romans were doing is they were bringing in provisions to the camps and distributing them to the various units which were being stored. And then of course, when the siege ended,

the jars were broken and just smashed or left there. They didn't need to carry them with them. And that's what we found. And that also is something that helps us to better understand how the Romans, you know, dealt with the problems of supply lines, right, during the course of the siege. One of the really interesting things to me was that, again, we found a lot of store jars, but we didn't find much else. So we didn't find like dining dishes, right? We didn't find plates and cups and bowls, things like that. Very little of that. And that leads to the question, well, gee, what are they eating off of? We also didn't find, by the way, much in the way of

cooking pots. So what are they doing in terms of, they're storing the food, but what are they doing in terms of cooking the food and eating it? And it turns out that, and you can actually see this at the base of Trajan's Column in Rome, when the Roman soldiers there are shown marching off to the campaign, each one is equipped with a mess kit. So when Roman soldiers went into the field on campaign, they had mess kits and they used their mess kits for cooking and eating. And therefore, we didn't find pottery that was used for those purposes. The mess kits were used in the field for that purpose, but they needed the jars for storing the food, the supplies that were being brought in. And I want to mention one more thing about logistics, and that is because the story of

Masada is so, in a way, mythical, a lot of people who visit the site today either are under the mistaken impression or are mistakenly told that the siege lasted three years. And the reason they think the siege lasted three years is because Jerusalem falls in 70 and Masada falls three years later. Again, there's a debate about the chronology. The siege occurred in the winter spring of 7273 or 7374. But at any rate, the length of the siege, the maximum length was no longer than six months, but it probably was much shorter. The siege actually probably lasted only about two months. And this was shown a number of years ago by a scholar named Jonathan Roth, who wrote a very detailed article on how much dirt and how

many stones each soldier could carry. He did a really detailed analysis, and he showed that the siege from beginning to end could have lasted as little as seven weeks. And that actually makes sense, because this is what the Romans were trained to do. This was a professional standing army. They had no desire to spend more time than they needed to at the foot of Masada, and so they were very efficient and effective about this. So probably the entire siege from beginning to end took place over the course of two months in the winter spring of 7273 or 7374. And notice, by the way, that the Romans conducted the siege in the winter spring months and not in the summer because they weren't idiots. So they didn't try to do that in the

summer months there. We, on the other hand, dug in the months of June and July. So the Romans were a little bit smarter than we were, but yeah. Yes, indeed. Probably not one to do a siege in the summer in the desert, quite right there. And Jojo, that's really amazing, the archaeology that you've discovered in these consuburna of the soldiers there. What is interesting also, though, you mentioned how they take the mess tin with them. I guess then that means that the archaeology that survives at the site, you probably didn't find many weapons or armor either. That's right, exactly so. And so, you know, a lot of times people say, well, did you find military equipment? And the answer,

of course, is we did not, as you rightly say. What army goes on a campaign and leaves their weapons behind when they're done? Nobody does that, right? So no, we did not find much. We did find very conspicuously piled in and up around the tent units, piles of these large river pebbles that are the size of a large egg, which turned out to be slingshot stones, which were just natural river pebbles that were collected locally and used. And then when they left, they left them behind. But we really, we didn't find much else in the way of military equipment in our excavations, which again is actually not surprising. When Yadin excavated the top of the mountain, though, he did actually find quite a bit of military equipment. He found hundreds of arrowheads, iron arrowheads,

and that's not surprising because you have to think of arrowheads like arrowheads with the shaft, the actual shaft is the arrow, right? He found mostly just the arrowheads. He found hundreds of those, which were, you have to think of them like bullets, right? They're being shot back and forth, fired back and forth by archers. And both the Romans and the Jews would have been firing arrows back and forth at each other. And the Romans in particular would have been firing a lot of these volleys of arrows as cover fire while they're winching the battering ram into place, right? So he did find a lot of those. He found actually a large number of scales of armor, which is a type

of armor associated with auxiliary soldiers in this period. And he found some other random things. I actually, that's how I originally got involved in this story, was I worked on the publication of the military equipment from Yadin's excavations. And so he does have some other very interesting things. And all of the military equipment from his excavations is published in one of the Mossada final report volumes, volume seven. I think one of the most remarkable things is an almost complete iron sword, because that's a very rare find, which originally was in

its scabbard when it was lost 2,000 years ago, but most of the scabbard deteriorated except for a little piece of the metal edging. And he also found a beautiful scabbard shape, which is a beautifully decorated metal reinforcing tip of a scabbard or a sword sheath, which this particular one has parallels from Italy in this period. It must have been a piece of legionary equipment that was lost on top of the mountain 2,000 years ago. And I should also mention, by the way, that after Masada fell, whenever it was in winter, spring of 73 or 74, the Romans left a garrison of troops

camped on top of the mountain for a couple of decades afterwards. So some of the finds associated with the Roman army on top of Masada are not necessarily from the siege itself, but are associated with the Roman garrison that occupied the mountain after the fall of the site. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. We'll be right back. teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,

was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Keeping on Yadin's excavations and his archaeology at the top of Masada, I mean, Jody, dating to the period of the siege, do we see Herod's Masada being revamped by the Jewish rebels to prepare for the Romans? all, the Jewish, I'm going to call them rebels. There were different groups of Jews on top of Masada. Some of them were rebel groups, and some of them were actually quite violent rebel groups

who we could in modern terms characterize as terrorists. But others were just random families who escaped in the wake of the siege of Jerusalem, or I think possibly some Essenes from Qumran when Qumran is destroyed by the Romans in 68. So there were various people who happened to end up on the top of Masada. And some of them were coming and going from 66 up until the Romans arrived at the foot of the mountain, right? So that's what, seven years of coming and going? That's a pretty long time, right? Seven years. And so over the course of time, and the Romans aren't there yet at that point. So these are people who are simply living up there under fairly harsh conditions. And over the course of that time, they modified things on top of the mountain to their needs, right?

So in some cases, they took some of the old buildings of Herod and modified them. For example, we can see places where they built like really crude installations on top of beautiful mosaic floors, or on top of beautiful painted walls, right? Because they didn't care about having a mosaic floor, they needed to sort of survive in this harsh environment under these conditions. And in other cases, and this you see a lot, they built things themselves, but usually you don't even have to be an archaeologist to see that their construction is very poor in quality with teeny little stones compared to the big stones in Herod's walls without any interior decoration. But yeah, so over the course of time, as they needed to, they modified structures and basically they camped out in various parts of the site, right?

They occupied various parts of the site. When the Romans arrive, so it's not so much that they make modifications when the Romans arrive, but they're seeing the assault ramp come up, right? So they have to somehow protect themselves from the Roman onslaught as the Romans are building the ramp and then start pulling their machinery up. And that's where you get the fighting back and forth in that area on the top of the western side of the mountain. The other thing that's really interesting, when I was working on the military equipment, I came across records where there are two main palaces that Herod built on top of Masada, the northern palace and the western palace. And in the western palace, in a room that has a beautiful, really beautiful mosaic floor,

interestingly, in that room, Yadin found evidence of an iron arrowhead workshop from the time of the revolt. So it's really interesting that you see, first of all, they're using a palatial room as an iron arrowhead workshop. But one of the things is that you're seeing them manufacture their own weapons. And when I was working on the military equipment, people asked me, so what kind of weapons did the Jews use? And I always found that to be kind of a funny question because it's the sort of assumption that Jews would have used different military equipment than everybody else. So the answer, of course, is that they were manufacturing Roman type arrowheads, right? They used the same kinds of military equipment that everybody else used.

And if you think about the arsenal of the modern state of Israel, they use the same kind of military equipment everybody else does, right? So the Jewish military equipment is the same as everybody else's, and they're manufacturing iron arrowheads, which they need, right, to fire onto the Romans, but Roman types, the characteristic Roman type of iron arrowhead. That is really interesting in itself. And also your earlier points, Jodie, about how you have dwellings up there. Also, you have ritual baths up there too. Most of the time, not always, but most of the time in most ancient societies, you were expected to be in some sort of a state of ritual purity when you entered a temple, when you entered the presence of your deity. And so it was also in Judaism. And for Jews, or before that Israelites, these laws are recorded in the five books of Moses. And one way that ritual purification could be affected in Judaism, but also by the way in other ancient cultures was through immersion in water let me just explain immersion in water you can immerse yourself pretty much at least according to Jewish law you can immerse yourself in any body

of natural water to purify yourself it can be a river a lake a stream a pool of water left after a rainfall an ocean a sea all of those are fine. But if you're living in a place like Masada, where you're in the middle of the desert and there are no pools of water around, what do you do? You can then dig an artificial pool into the ground and fill it with water. The water has to be natural water, so rainwater that flows in or whatever. So that's what a ritual bath is. So we do have a number of ritual baths on top of Masada, which show that already during the time of Herod, there were ritual baths on top of Masada,

and certainly ritual baths on top of Masada at the time of the revolt, which shows that even in the time of Herod, there were Jews visiting at least on top of Masada, if not Herod and his family himself, who would have been using ritual baths, and then certainly during the time of the revolt, which shows that, and there is other evidence for this as well, that the Jews on top of Masada at the time of the revolt were observing biblical Jewish law. And that's exactly what we would expect. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of our sibling podcast,

The Ancients, with the brilliant Tristan Hughes, who we call the Tristorian in the office. If you want to listen to more Ancients, and I'm telling you there's plenty of them, guys and machine, just simply go to wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to The Ancients. to the ancients. dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. you