At the Top of Masada and in the Caves of Qumran

In the 30s BCE, on an isolated hilltop in the Judean Desert, whose steep slopes rise to a height of 400 meters above the Dead Sea, King Herod built a luxurious, fortified palace.
The palace, with its large halls, verandas overlooking the landscape, and large bathhouse, seemed to challenge the very forces of nature. The vast food storerooms and enormous water cisterns made Masada virtually unconquerable.
The same palace, intended to serve the hedonistic king and his family, became the last holdout of the Jewish rebels who conquered Masada and entrenched themselves there during the great revolt against the Roman Empire and the kings of the Herodian dynasty.
In 2001, some 2,000 years after being captured by the Romans, Masada was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as a symbol of the destruction of the Israelite Kingdom and the beginning of the long Jewish exile. The rebels who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom of existence and of worship have made Masada into a symbol of Jewish valor and the heroic struggle between oppression and liberty.
Between 1947 and 1956, the remains of the settlement of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Hidden Scrolls, were discovered south of Masada. The discovery of these scrolls was considered one of the most important archeological finds of all time. The scrolls are thought to be the most ancient copy of the Hebrew Bible, and were probably hidden by a group of Jewish dissenters who preferred a life of asceticism in the desert to the hedonism of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period.
According to archeological findings, the settlement in Qumran existed in the First Temple period, in the 8th century BCE, and in the Second Temple period, in 2nd century BCE.
The Essenes, the Jewish dissenters of Qumran, lived there as a separatist group, and viewed themselves as the chosen Jewish people. The Essenes preferred to live under the ascetic conditions afforded them by the Qumran Caves rather than spend their lives in Jerusalem where the Hasmoneans were living a life of material self-indulgence.
According to legend, one of the residents was Yohanan – or John – after he had baptized Jesus at the southern end of the Jordan River, where it spills into the Dead Sea, walking distance from Qumran. John the Baptist and Jesus, his disciple, were to become the moving force of one of the greatest transformations in human history – the founding of the Christian religion. Some claim that Qumran is the cradle of early Christianity.
Masada and Qumran are more inextricably linked to symbols of historical and religious significance than any other place in the world. Every year, Masada and Qumran, considered the most important attractions along the shores of the Dead Sea, draw thousands of tourists seeking to combine a vacation in this unique location with visits to some of the most important historical sites anywhere.