Massada, The Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, and Qumran

With one of our last full field trips we had a terrific day.  We started out by going to Masada.  This is one of the places that King Herod the Great is famous for.  He made it pretty much awesome and almost impossible to attack.  However, during the First Revolt against Rome after the Romans had conquered Jerusalem and the Herodian they came to Masada.  They built a huge siege ramp, and took over Masada.  But, when the Romans came into the city all of the Jews were dead.  It is thought that they all committed suicide/killed one another so that they would not be slaves to the Romans.

With Lindsay Hall

Then we headed to the Dead Sea.  It was pretty crazy.  From what I have heard, the dead sea is usually pretty calm, but because it was windy there were a lot of waves.  Getting into the water was tricky because we had to climb over salt rocks to get in.  Once in we really did float.  You could not drown if you wanted to.  I was doing pretty well in the water and then a wave smacked me in the face.  My throat burned, my eyes stung, and so I got out.  It was pretty miserable and I almost started crying (to get the salt out of my eyes of course).  I was probably in for less than 15 minutes but that was plenty long for me!

Picture from Lindsay's blog!  Thanks Lindsay!

We then headed to Ein Gedi which was absolutely beautiful.  David hid from Saul at Ein Gedi.

 

 

Our final stop was Qumran which is where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.  It was pretty amazing being able to see the site where the Essenes practiced monasticism and where they produced and preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls.  It was a pretty amazing place!

The caves where the scrolls were found.

The famous Cave 4.

All in all it was an absolutely fantastic day!