Machaerus (Μαχαιροῦς, from sword ; ) was a Hasmonean hilltop palace and desert

fortress A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

, rebuilt by Herod and now in ruins, located in the village of Mukawir in modern-day

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

, southeast of the mouth of the Jordan River on the eastern side of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

. Machaerus was built by Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus (r. 104–78 BCE). Destroyed later by Roman general Gabinius in 57 BCE during conflicts with Aristobulus II, it was subsequently rebuilt and expanded by Herod, who envisioned it as a potential refuge. Herod constructed a palace, cisterns, a ''

mikveh A mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvot'', or (Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazic) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for ritual washing in Judaism#Full-body immersion, ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve Tumah and taharah, ...

'', a '' triclinium'', and a '' peristyle'' within the fortress. After the fall of Jerusalem during the First Jewish–Roman War, the fortress became a magnet for resistance against Roman rule. Following a siege by Legio X Fretensis under Bassus in 71 CE, the Jewish defenders eventually surrendered after Eleazar, a key leader, was captured. However, the Romans reneged on their agreement regarding the non-Jewish inhabitants, massacring the men and enslaving the women and children. According to the Jewish-Roman historian

Flavius Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing ''The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Judaea ...

, Machaerus was the location of the imprisonment and execution of

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

. According to the chronology of the Bible (; ), the execution took place in about 32 CE shortly before the Passover, following an imprisonment of two years. The site also provides the setting for four additional

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

figures:

Herod the Great Herod I or Herod the Great () was a History of the Jews in the Roman Empire, Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the ...

; his son, Tetrarch Herod Antipas; his second wife, Princess Herodias; and her daughter, Princess Salome.

History

The fortress Machaerus was originally built by the Hasmonean king, Alexander Jannaeus (104 BC-78 BC) in about the year 90 BC, serving an important strategic position. Its high, rocky vantage point was difficult to access, and invasions from the east could be easily spotted from there. It was also in line of sight of other Hasmonean (and later Herodian) citadels, so other fortresses could be signaled if trouble appeared on the horizon. Nevertheless, it was destroyed by

Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey ( ) or Pompey the Great, was a Roman general and statesman who was prominent in the last decades of the Roman Republic. ...

's general Gabinius in 57 BC, but later rebuilt by

in 30 BC to be used as a military base to safeguard his territories east of the Jordan. Upon the death of Herod the Great, the fortress was passed to his son, Herod Antipas, who ruled from 4 BC until 39 AD. It was during this time, at the beginning of the first century of the

Common Era Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the ...

, that

was imprisoned and beheaded at Machaerus. After the deposition and banishment of Herod Antipas in 39 AD, Machaerus passed to Herod Agrippa I until his death in AD 44, after which it came under Roman control. Jewish rebels took control after AD 66 during the First Jewish Revolt. Shortly after defeating the Jewish garrison of Herodium, the Roman legate Lucilius Bassus advanced on Machaerus with his troops and began siege in AD 72. An embankment and ramp were created in order to facilitate Roman siege engines but the Jewish rebels capitulated before the Roman attack had begun. The rebels were allowed to leave and the fortress was torn down, leaving only the foundations intact.

Design

Josephus gives a full description of Machaerus in '' The Jewish War'' 7.6.1 ff. The hilltop, which stands about 1,100 meters above Dead Sea level, is surrounded on all sides by deep ravines which provide great natural strength. The valley on the west extends 60 stadia to the Dead Sea (Josephus refers to it as Lake Asphaltitis). The valley on the east descends to a depth of a hundred cubits (150 ft). Herod the Great regarded the place as deserving the strongest fortification, particularly because of its proximity to

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

. On top of the mountain, surrounding the crest, he built a fortress wall, 100 meters long and 60 meters wide with three corner towers, each sixty cubits (90 ft) high. The palace was built in the center of the fortified area. Numerous

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

s were provided to collect rain water. The royal courtyard is considered one of the closest and best existing archaeological parallels to the Herodian Gabbatha in the Jerusalem Praetorium, where

Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; ) was the Roman administration of Judaea (AD 6–135), fifth governor of the Judaea (Roman province), Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. He is best known for being the official wh ...

judged Jesus of Nazareth.

Excavation

The village on the plateau to the east of the mountain is called Mukawir (, sometimes also rendered as Mkawer). The site was visited in 1807 by the Frisian explorer Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, and the name of the village reminded him of the name of Machaerus in Greek. The archaeological excavation of Machaerus was begun in 1968 by Jerry Vardaman, then of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and later director of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University. In 1973, the German scholar, August Strobel, identified and studied the wall by which the Romans encircled the defenders within the fortress. In 1978–1981, excavations were carried out by Virgilio Corbo, Stanislao Loffreda and Michele Piccirillo, from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. Within the fortified area are the ruins of the Herodian palace, including rooms, a large courtyard, and an elaborate bath, with fragments of the floor mosaic still remaining. Farther down the eastern slope of the hill are other walls and towers, perhaps representing the "lower town," of which Josephus also wrote. Traceable also, coming from the east, is the aqueduct that brought water to the cisterns of the fortress. Pottery found in the area extends from late

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

to Roman periods and confirms the two main periods of occupation, namely, Hasmonean (90 BC-57 BC) and Herodian (30 BC-AD 72), with a brief reoccupation soon after AD 72 and then nothing further—so complete and systematic was the destruction visited upon the site by the Romans.

Anastylosis

In the spring of 2014, archeologist Győző Vörös, with a team from the Hungarian Academy of Arts and in cooperation with Prince El Hassan bin Talal and Monther Jamhawi, director general of antiquities in Jordan, completed a reconstruction and re-erection of two ancient columns at the site on the basis of the principle of anastylosis. One Doric column from the royal courtyard and one Ionic column from the royal bathhouse were cleaned and conserved ''in situ'' and joined with stainless steel empolia (plugs) which were inserted into the original empolia holes in the center of the column. The team also created a digital reconstruction of what the palace would have looked like, based on their archaeological findings.''Anastylosis at Machaerus'', Biblical Archaeology Review, Jan/Feb. 2015, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp52-61.

Notes

External links

article in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith

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Studium Biblicum Franciscanum's Page on "The Machaerus Archaeological Excavations in Jordan"Machaerus: Beyond the Beheading of John the Baptist
Biblical Archaeology Society
Photos of Machaerus
at the American Center of Research {{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in the 1st century BC Buildings and structures demolished in the 1st century BC Buildings and structures demolished in the 1st century 70s disestablishments in the Roman Empire 1807 archaeological discoveries Archaeological sites in Jordan First Jewish–Roman War Fortifications in Jordan Herod the Great Jews and Judaism in Jordan Jews and Judaism in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire John the Baptist Herod Agrippa Herod Antipas Salome Monuments and memorials in Jordan Ancient Jewish settlements of Transjordan Hellenistic architecture