MASADA - MODEL OF THE BUILDINGS

Monotone model of the buildings at Masada

Masada was a micro-world with everything a thriving community needed to survive in a hostile environment.

This monotone model of Masada lets the viewer appreciate the different types of buildings:

• living quarters for the royal family, their guests, a bevy of officials, and a multitude of servants
• storerooms with vast supplies
• a synagogue - people at Masada honored Jewish practice
• a large library with storage space for hundreds of scrolls
• a luxurious bath complex
• extensive kitchens.

Masada was possibly the most brilliant of Herod's architectural achievements.

It had full Roman baths, mosaics and frescoes - but no decoration that clashed with, or offended against, the Second Commandment (Thou shalt not make for thyself a graven image), which Jews at that time interpreted as meaning they should not create images of any living creature.

The model above shows the casemate wall (two parallel walls with partitions dividing the space between them into rooms). It is 1400meters long and 4meters wide and was built along the edge of the plateau, above the steep cliffs, with a number of towers. 

It was also built on an impossibly difficult site. Building materials had to be transported long distances, then carried up the steep, narrow path to the summit of the plateau.