"Masada" a Masada Travel Page by Paul2001

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Masada is the most impressive archeological site that I visited while in Israel. It is an ancient fortification built, mostly by King Herod the Great, on top of a mountain plateau. Seemingly impregnable, it fell to the Romans in 73 A.D. after a legendary siege. As the story goes, the fortress was defended by Jewish Zealots after Roman captured nearby Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Because the steep slopes of mountain face made a direct assault impossible, the Roman, in an equally marvelous feat of engineering built a ramp up on side of the mountain face inorder to access the fortress walls. Finally after the ramp was completed and the fall of the fortress seemed but certain, the Zealots rather than facing enslavement by the Romans, committed mass suicide.
I have read elsewhere that this may not have been the actual facts about the fortresses capture however its stoic defense had made Masada the stuff of legends. Today Masada is symbolic of Jewish national heroism.