NEARLY 2,000 YEARS ago, at a remote hilltop fortress in the Judean desert, 960 Jews chose suicide over death or enslavement by a Roman legion.
No, this isn't a script synopsis for the next Indiana Jones movie.This incredible event actually took place, and now "The Story of Masada, Discoveries of the Excavation" will have its American premiere at BYU, March 13, within the modern walls of the university's Museum of Art. (Also on display is an adjoining exhibition of rare Dead Sea scroll material that will expand the scope of the Masada exhibition.) The exhibit features rare artifacts from the reign of King Herod the Great (37 B.C.-4 B.C.) and from the era when Jewish zealots occupied the fort (A.D. 66-73) and the Roman army seized and captured Masada. The featured items include pottery, oil lamps, perfume bottles, textiles, weapons, column drums, looms and spindle whorls and actual Dead Sea scrolls found at Masada.
Josephus, the first century A.D. Jewish historian - who later became a Roman citizen - writes that the leader of the first group to fortify the rock was a high priest, Jonathan, who gave it the name Masada, which means mountain fortress. Later, Herod built a magnificent palace on Masada as a refuge against possible attacks from his opponents. After Herod's death, a Roman garrison occupied the site until 66 A.D. During the Jewish revolt, a militant group defeated the Romans and took over the fortress.
After Titus conquered Jerusalem by slaughtering thousands of Jewish rebels, those who managed to escape fled to Masada under the leadership of Eleazer ben Ya'ir. The Roman commander Flavius Silva led the 10th Legion against the stronghold and breached the outer walls in 73 A.D.
In Josephus Wars of the Jews, Chapter 8, Eleazer makes a plea to the people of Masada: "Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted slavery; and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually, and preserve ourselves in freedom, as an excellent funeral monument for us. But first let us destroy our money and the fortress by fire; for I am well assured that this will be a great grief to the Romans, that they shall not be able to seize upon our bodies, and shall fail of our wealth also; and let us spare nothing but our provisions; for they will be a testimonial when we are dead that we were not subdued for want of necessaries; but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death before slavery."
Two women and five children who hid themselves were the only survivors of the mass suicide.
Masada was partly excavated in 1955 and 1956 during an expedition sponsored by the Israeli Department of Antiquities, the Israel Exploration Society and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A massive second expedition led by professor Yigael Yadin excavated the restored 97 percent of the site from 1963-65.
Some scholars consider parts of the Masada story to be mere legend, while others venerate this ancient fortress as a shrine to heroism. BYU invites museumgoers to draw their own conclusions after walking through the exhibition, which is designed to help everyone become an archaeologist or anthropologists of a sort as they fill in the story behind the artifacts.
To help museumgoers understand more about Masada before they enter the exhibit, BYU has created an eight-minute introductory video, a 30-minute audio tour and an English translation of the Hebrew catalogue first produced for the Masada showings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The Museum of Peoples and Cultures and BYU Studies is sponsoring The Story of Masada under the direction of Marti Lu Allen and John W. Welch.
The exhibition is under the auspices of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority, and sponsored by the Israel Ministry of Tourism, the Schussheim Foundation, and the Israel Exploration Society. Curator of the exhibition is Gila Hurvitz, Institute of Archaeology.
"The Story of Masada, Discoveries of the Excavation" and "The Dead Sea Scrolls" will run from March 13 through Sept. 18. Tours with taped audio take approximately 45 minutes and will run from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Tickets are on sale at the Marriott Ticket Office, 1-800-322-BYU1.
Tickets are $6 for adults, $5 for senior citizens 62 years and older and adult civic and church groups of 10 or more, $4 for BYU students and $2.50 for student and youth groups. For more information, contact 1-801-378-2981. Each ticket includes entrance to both exhibits.