Masada and Ma's AHH Day

 A couple of years ago, we read the book The Dove Keepers by Alice Hoffman - which as an amazing historical fiction story of a woman who joined a community on top of this Mesa in the middle of the wilderness to escape the cruelty of the Romans.  The story was based on the true history of Masada. King Herod made Masada - the top of this Mesa an lavish winter resort for himself and those he entertained complete with an Olympic sized swimming pool, several terraces, baths, with a water system of cisterns, stored grain, etc.  It was "snob hill."  Eventually, it was conquered and became a sort of hiding place for the Zealots.  The Romans, who had conquered almost everything everywhere, knew that there were a rather small population of these zealots up there, but wanted them ALL gone.  So they built a wall around this Mesa and started to build a ramp up to attack and get them gone once and for all - they attacked, burned down what they could and went to bed thinking that they would just flush them all out and enslave them in the morning.  BUT the zealots had other plans, they decided that they would rather die than be tortured, their wives and children abused and enslaved.  They all killed their wives and children and tthen drew lots (they found the actual pottery shards with the 10 men's names on them) to determine who would be the man to take down the last man and then fall upon his sword.  When the Romans came up the next morning they were all dead, but 3 - a woman and her children, hiding in a cistern.  Anyway, read the book, it was a good story.  Some monks later on discovered the place and restored and took care of it and the memory of those people.  



We took these stairs down to Herod's second terrace overlooking the wilderness and eventually the dead sea.

The zealots used the water and grains etc that Herod stored up to survive.  They lived in rooms in the walls of the fortress and raised Doves for food, eggs and poop (fertilizer).

We had the rest of the day off to swim in the Dead Sea - which was the perfect temperature for a swim on this 85 degree day....and of course you can't do anything but float in the salt water.  The salt is in little crystal balls on the bottom - quite hard on the feet!  The salt is said to have great healing powers - and our hotel is part spa to capitalize on that.  It actually stings if you get it on your face, etc.  

After that we of course had to go to the pool.  Today, we hit the fresh water pool which was filled with people starting their weekend!  Lots of people watching!



The view from my chaise lounge this afternoon.  

The area reminds me of Utah



Tomorrow we head to Jerusalem.


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