Anastylosis at Machaerus

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This is the story of the re-erection of two ancient Herodian columns—one Doric, the other Ionic—on the basis of the principle of anastylosis at the archaeological site of Machaerus in Jordan.

Machaerus, of course, is the dramatic Dead Sea palace-fortress where Salome danced and John the Baptist was beheaded.^a

Anastylosis is a Greek term used by architects and archaeologists to refer to the restoration of an ancient structure using only the original architectural elements to the greatest extent possible. One of the most famous examples of anastylosis is the 19th-century restoration of the Parthenon in Athens. Our much more limited anastylosis at the Machaerus hilltop was undertaken during the spring of 2014.

Naturally, we must be confident of the original form of the part of the structure we are restoring. And that has been our assignment at Machaerus. The fortified palace of Machaerus was built by Herod the Great in about 30 B.C. on the ruins of the Hasmonean fortress of the Jerusalem high priest and monarch Alexander Jannaeus. The heart and center of this dramatic hilltop structure overlooking the Dead Sea was the royal courtyard.

Before looking in more detail at this space, we may briefly recall the famous party Herod’s son Herod Antipas gave for his birthday in the presence of his new wife Herodias, 053 where her daughter Salome danced. Antipas was so moved that he promised Salome “to grant her anything she might ask” (Mark 6:22; Matthew 14:7). John the Baptist had infuriated Heriodias (and Herod Antipas) by declaring their marriage illegal (Mark 6:18; Matthew 14:4). Under the influence of her mother, Salome asked Antipas for the head of John the Baptist on a platter (Mark 6:24; Matthew 14:8). According to the Roman historian Josephus, John the Baptist was brought to Machaerus in chains, where Antipas had him killed (Antiquities 18.5,2).

After the Transfiguration, Jesus predicts that the “Son of man will suffer similarly at their hands. Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist” 054 (Matthew 17:12–13). Thus we can consider Machaerus—according to the words of Jesus—as the Golgotha of John the Baptist.

The royal courtyard of Machaerus is clearly the most important architectural space of the Herodian castle. It was undoubtedly here that the freshly remarried Herod Antipas celebrated his birthday with his new wife Herodias, when her daughter Salome danced. This courtyard is not simply the largest architectural place in the fortified palace of Machaerus—but the only space where the tetrarch was able to receive the large gathering of official guests. Many came even from the northern part of his tetrachy; this included a delegation from Galilee (Mark 6:21). This space even has an apsidal niche for the royal throne.

The royal courtyard’s architectural elements were first excavated in 1980 by the late Jerusalem Franciscan Fathers Virgilio Corbo and Michele Piccirillo, and later from 1992 to 1993 by the Second 055 Franciscan Archaeological Mission to Machaerus, led again by Father Piccirillo. We found these dressed building stones in an undocumented, unguarded and unpublished open-air storeroom on the archaeological site.

The first Herodian column drum of Machaerus was discovered and identified in the summer of 1968 by Jerry Vardaman, then of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and later director of the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State 056 University. Most of the architectural elements of the columns survived at the bottom of a Herodian cistern, excavated from 1992 to 1993.

Our team from the Hungarian Academy of Arts¹ started to excavate at the archaeological site in 2009.²

The unit of measurement used by the Herodian architects for the royal courtyard was the so-called pygme, that is, the Greek forearm from the elbow to the wrist joint—about 13.6 inches. (This is smaller than a Biblical cubit of 18 inches.)

No architrave stones from atop columns were found at Machaerus; the Herodian builders probably used cedars from the Lebanese mountains instead of stones as architecture between the columns.

From the surviving architectural elements we were able to “Lego” together only one complete royal courtyard column—and it was Doric. We know the columns were Doric because in 1980 the Franciscans discovered one in situ undecorated Doric column-base there, and the Doric columns are composed of column drums much larger in diameter than the Machaerus Ionic order. We also found Doric column prints lining the porticoes at the sides of the royal courtyard.

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In the Doric peristyle courtyard there were originally 24 similar columns, of which nine column prints survived on the stylobate (the raised base on which the columns were set). At the corners were so-called heart-shaped columns (on the ground plan, it is as if two columns from 90-degree opposite directions had been combined to make one-and-a-half columns; see box “Classical Canons”).

So if the columns in the courtyard were Doric, where did the Ionic column drums come from? The answer was clear—from the palace’s royal bathhouse. In 1979, the Jerusalem Franciscan Fathers had discovered in the crepidoma (platform) of the bathhouse’s apodyterium (entry hall and dressing room) an in situ Ionic column-base. Lining the bathhouse’s apodyterium were originally (most probably) 12 Ionic columns, whose column drums are smaller than the Doric drums. Here, too, we were able to reconstruct one column from original fragments, thus fulfilling the requirements of international conventions for anastylosis: We used only original architectural elements, we re-erected the columns at their original locations, and we reconstructed them as they 059 originally appeared.

For the height of the reconstructed columns, we obeyed the classical Early Roman (Herodian) architectural canons: The Doric column is 11 modules (the radius of the column base), totaling 12.5 feet (380 cm), and the Ionic column is 19 modules, totaling 15.6 feet (475 cm).

We were even able to duplicate the entasis of the original columns. Entasis is the convex curve of the side of a column. The Doric column has an A-shaped form from top to bottom; the Ionic column is more like a cigar (or a pregnant woman) shape, with the widest part at the middle.

The height of the reconstructed Doric column even fits the classical 11-module Greek pygme, the architectural unit of the royal courtyard.

Both re-erected columns were originally decorated with plaster, thus giving the finished appearance of white marble monoliths, just as in Alexandria or 060 061 Rome! In accordance with the principle of anastylosis, we conserved the in situ plaster but did not add to it.

Within the walls of this Dead Sea royal palace, four figures from the Gospels once lived: Herod the Great; his son, Tetrarch Herod Antipas; his second wife, Princess Herodias; and her daughter, Princess Salome, from a previous marriage.

Today, not only can we visit the archaeological site where they came together, but virtually we can also visit the place of the Calvary of John the Baptist.

Rarely can an archaeological site of such breathtaking beauty, both natural and architectural, evoke such dramatic events in Roman and Christian history.

As a kind of footnote, I might add that the royal courtyard of Machaerus is one of the closest and best existing archaeological parallels to the Herodian Gabbatha (Greek: Lithostrotos) in the Jerusalem Praetorium—where Pontius Pilate made his historic judgment of a death-sentence on Jesus of Nazareth (John 19:13–16).

This is the story of the re-erection of two ancient Herodian columns—one Doric, the other Ionic—on the basis of the principle of anastylosis at the archaeological site of Machaerus in Jordan.