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Yigael Yadin
The excavation from 1963 to 1965 of the Judean desert rock-fortress of Masada, has taken its place as one of the most exciting and significant archaeological events of recent times....This stronghold overlooking the Dead Sea was the site on which Herod the Great erected some of his most daring buildings and also the scene of one of the most dramatic episodes in human history, when 960 Zealot defenders preferred to kill themselves rather than surrender to the Romans, three years after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD. The only source of its history is the contemporary account by Josephus, who was one of the commanders in that very great revolt against Rome. Professor Yigael Yadin, the distinguished military leader and archaeologist, was invited to head the expedition which found much evidence to confirm Josephus' descriptions, and in this dramatic account he describes the history of Masada in the first century AD, the fascinating early attempts at its rediscovery by 19th and 20th-century explorers, and the full story of the biggest archaeological enterprise ever attempted in the Holy Land. His description of the campaigns and the treasures that were found is illustrated with more than 200 photographs, half of them in full colour. Among the many spectacular discoveries were Herod's three-tiered palace-villa... Herod's ceremonial palace with its multicoloured mosaics; hundreds of jars containing remnants of food left by the Jewish defenders; stone balls hurled at the defenders by the Roman siege catapults; the biggest collections of Jewish and Roman coins of the first century AD ever found in one excavation; religious architecture including the earliest known synagogue and ritual baths; parchment scrolls... including the earliest known manuscript of Ecclesiasticus; and finally, nearly 700 inscriptions on pottery sherds, including a group which may well have been the very suicide lots drawn by the last eleven defenders of Masada...
January 1, 1973 by Steimatzky's Agency
Tags:
1973,
All Products,
Classics,
Israeli,
Nonfiction
