Image Details

Werner Braun

Masada, where King Herod built a fortress-palace, later occupied by the Zealots during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. Herod’s three-tiered palace appears in this aerial view in the left of the photo, stepping down from the plateau of the diamond-shaped mountain. The top of the mountain is surrounded by a casemate wall. The arrow identifies the synagogue (see photo and plan of Synagogue at Masada) where Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin uncovered fragments of biblical books buried beneath the floor of the synagogue’s genizah, a storage room for discarded religious books.