The upper photo is a view from 16 miles up, showing the Dead Sea; below it is the fortress from 10,000 feet. At Masada one finds no water or vegetation, only heat. It sits in the Desert of Judah stretching from 21 miles west at Hebron to the Dead Sea, where the Jordan River ends. Masada is a lozenge-shaped table mountain 730 yards long and 215 yards wide, sitting 440 feet above the Dead Sea. Its main access point is a steep old road from the east called the Snake Path.
Masada was one of the three treasuries of King Herod, who also had a small palace there. Fortified by Jonathan, brother of Judas Maccabeus circa 140 B.C, protected by a Jewish garrison until the establishment of Judea as a Roman province in 6 A.D, and retaken by the Jewish soldiers under Manaemus during the confusion of the Jewish revolt of 66 A.D, it was overrun by the Sicarii in 70 A.D. Under their leader, Eleazar, the Sicarii set about terrorizing the surrounding territory.