Herodium, Masada and the Herodian building programme
Herod the Great's reign is visible in stone across Judaea, on the scale the sources describe.
Confirmed by the groundExcavated site37–4 BC
Fortress-palaces on desert crags with swimming pools, bathhouses and frescoed rooms, supplied by cisterns cut for the purpose — the works of the king the Gospels place at the beginning of the story. Masada's storerooms, palaces and the Roman siege ramp around it are all still visible.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king…
- Found
- Herodium, Masada, Jericho, Jerusalem, 1963 — Yigael Yadin at Masada; Ehud Netzer at Herodium and elsewhere
- Now held at
- In place; Masada is a UNESCO World Heritage site
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
The building programme is beyond doubt. Nothing in it bears on the events of Matthew 2, and no independent record of those events exists.
How historians use it
Herodian architecture is a field of its own; Masada and Herodium are among the most fully excavated sites in the country.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Netzer, The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder (2006)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.