A Garden Tomb

This may what the Tomb of Jesus looked like. A rich man like Joseph of Arimathea would have had a tomb like this and it would not have been any where near where the Romans did crucifying.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

This is the entrance to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem which was built by the crusaders to mark the spot where supposedly Jesus was crucified and was buried. This was not the first church building constructed on that spot - the crusaders destroyed the first one in their siege of Jerusalem.

This is one of the alters in the church it is in front of the place where they say the tomb was.

Jerusalem Temple Mount

During this Holy Week I am thinking about this sacred site where the temple once stood, where Jesus taught and near the place here he died on the cross and later was resurrected.

How The Roman's Did It!

After seeing the vertical sides of Massada one wonders how the Roman Army could have captured it. Well look at this picture a wonder no more.

The Romans built a ramp up one side of the mountain. They were clever these Romans for the defenders of Massada could have very easily killed any one working on the ramp but they didn't. The ramp builders were bran new slaves that the Romans had captured at Jerusalem. Jews built the ramp for the Roman army and the defenders of Massada would not kill their fellow country men and women.

In the end the defenders committed suicide rather than be captured by the Romans.

Looking Down on Massada

Here is a picture looking down on Massada. You can see how easy it was to defend this fortress.

Massada Storage Building

Here we have an entrance to one of the storage building on Massada. Notice the stone work was roughly done and then plastered over for a neater appearance. This was a common practice for many building in that time. Stone was a popular building material because they had a lot of it and little else.

Massada Floor Tiles

Here is a close up look at some floor tiles in King Herod's palace at Massada. Having recently tiled my basement floor I have a great respect for the amount of work that went into that floor over two thousand years ago.  The cement that the tile was laid in was a lot thicker than we use today. Notice too how rough the floor is underneath the tile. It was a lovely design.