FINAL WARNING: The Curtain Falls
Masada. Rome struck back, and four years later, with nearly a million
dead, and many enslaved, Jerusalem was firmly in their grasp, the
Temple was destroyed, and the entire country was overrun. The
Roman Tenth Legion, under the command of Flavius Silva, spent three
years with a legion of 6,000 men, and 15,000 Jewish slaves, to build an
assault tower in order to destroy the last vestiges of Jewish resistance
at Masada.When the Roman soldiers breached the walls of the fortress, they
found only corpses, as the occupants preferred death to being
captured and enslaved.In 1963, Masada was excavated by the Israeli Dept. of Antiquities in a
massive archaeological operation led by Israeli scholar and soldier,
Gen. Yigael Yadin. They discovered coins, tools, weapons, catapult
ammunition, wine jars, beads, rings, buckles, jewelry, cosmetics,
ovens, pots, pans, lamps, dishes, baskets, and remnants of woven
fabric clothing, as well as 14 parchment scrolls containing Biblical text
(Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ezekiel), the apocryphal Wisdom of
Ben-Sira, and Book of Jubilees, and a sectarian scroll which provided
a link between the zealots and the Essenes of Qumran, 30 miles north
of Masada.In a cave on the upper face of the southern-most cliff below the
plateau, reached by descending to it with a rope, 25 skeletons were
found: 14 males, ages 22-60; a man between 70 and 80; six females
between 15-22; four children from 8-12; and a fetus. It had been
believed that all of the bodies had been thrown over the side; so either
the Roman centurions were unaware of this group which were
separated from the main complex, or they were allowed to remain
where they had fallen, just as the three skeletons found in Herod’s
palace at the northern end of the complex, which were believed to be
that of Eleazar ben Yáir, the Jewish commander, his wife and child,
and left there as a tribute to his valor. The three were formally buried in
July, 1969, at the foot of Masada in a common grave, with full military
honors.It seems likely that there was an easier access to the cave, back at that
time, which had since eroded away, the face of which was clearly
visible from at least two nearby camps, so it had to have been