Masada legend upended: ‘The Romans came, saw and conquered, quickly and brutally’ The costly Roman operation was likely undertaken only after Masada-based Jewish forces raided nearby Ein Gedi and disrupted production of balsam, a precious commodity, TAU prof says (Gavriel Fiske, Times of Israel)
The headlines, which are typical of the overall coverage, focus on a point not raised in my earlier post. The main point of the JRA article was to publish new evidence that the siege wall was built quickly, an estimated 11-16 days. But the authors also deployed this point as evidence (I would say fairly indirect evidence) in favor of the hypothesis of J. Roth, published in 1995, that the whole siege itself was much briefer than previously estimated: 4-9 weeks rather than three years.
Josephus actually doesn't tell us how long the siege lasted. The three-year figure is a modern estimate. But it's possible the siege started well after the fall of Jerusalem.
For more on the fall of Masada, with emphasis on its archaeology, start here and follow the links. Some of them deal with revisionist views of what happened. In a sense, this new study is "revisionist" too, but only revising another widely-accepted modern interpretation of the evidence.
The other revisionist views mostly challenge the reliability of the ancient narrative of Josephus, who gave us the only surviving account of the siege. Some also challenge elements of Yadin's interpretation of the evidence he excavated at Masada.
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