Image Details

Courtesy of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission to Machaerus/Photo by David Kennedy

The site of Machaerus was identified by its circumvallation wall—the wall built by the Tenth Roman Legion to keep the Jewish rebels who had taken refuge in Machaerus’s citadel from escaping during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–71 C.E.). When the German professor August Strobel came to Machaerus in 1965, he noticed that a 2.2-mile-long Roman siege wall ringed the site. Since the Tenth Roman Legion had built a siege wall around only one site in Transjordan—around Machaerus—the site’s identity was then confirmed. The above image of Machaerus shows the citadel, as well as the circumvallation wall, siege ramp and two Roman military siege camps: Camps D and H. The military agger-ramp Machaerus nor Masada not completed.