We drove late Friday night from Tel Aviv to the Dead Sea so that we could spend the night at the foot of Masada, poised for a pre-dawn climb to the top to see the sunrise over the Jordan mountains. This is something I have been looking forward to seeing since reading about the Jews at Masada in a novel called "The Dovekeepers" by Alice Hoffman. The book is historical fiction which tells the story of a woman who is ejected from Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple and wanders in the desert barely surviving before ending up at Masada where she lives with the rebels who had escaped Jerusalem. In the book, she is one of the lucky five who supposedly escaped the terrible fate that befell the rest of the rebels who committed mass suicide rather than being captured and enslaved by the Romans when they attacked. I was completely captivated by the story and found it moving and fascinating to wander around the partially restored ruins imagining the lives and deaths of the people who had lived there.
Masada is a huge plateau located on the Eastern fringe of the Judean Desert near the shore of the Dead Sea. Its remote and easily defendable location was chosen by King Herod to be the site of his winter palace and a refuge from his enemies. During his reign luxurious palaces, storerooms and cisterns were constructed on top of the plateau which was ringed by a wall that was built for defense. 100 years after Herod's time a group of rebel Jews came to Massada during the Great Revolt in 66 CE and expelled the small Roman garrison that was stationed there. They lived in some of Herod's abandoned palaces, constructed a synagogue and mikvah, grew food and raised doves to eat and used the droppings for fertilizer. In Alice Hoffman's story the female character is assigned to work in the dovecote where the birds are kept.
In 73 or 74 CE the Romans laid seige to
Masada and after constructing a massive ramp up the mountain they were poised to break through the walls and capture the Jews. The rebels destroyed the fortress and killed all its inhabitants rather than being subject to Roman enslavement. The tragic events of the last days of the rebels at Masada were transformed into both a Jewish cultural icon and a symbol of humanitiy's continuous struggle for freedom of oppression.
After touring the ruins for several hours we descended the steep "Snake Path" that we had ascended in darkness and made our way to the Dead Sea to bathe in the mineral waters. Walking up before dawn was a great idea because we had the place to ourselves. When we left the parking lot had at least 40 huge tour busses in it and it would have been a different experience being there with hoards of tourists.
The Dead Sea is amazing: crystal clear, turquoise blue and loaded with so many minerals that the water is very dense. This gives the body buoyancy and allows you to float on the surface like a cork. This is a very good thing because if your head was submerged in the briny water your eyes and mucous membranes would be burned. We stayed there for a while listening to the Russian chatter from the other beach goers before rinsing off and heading South to Eilat.