Sienkewicz Lecture on Roman Archaeology
Jodi Magness, Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (magness@email.unc.edu)
In the first century B.C.E., Herod the Great, who ruled Judea as client king on behalf of Rome, built a fortified palace atop the mountain of Masada overlooking the Dead Sea. Seventy years after Herod’s death, the First Jewish Revolt against Rome broke out and Jewish rebels occupied Masada. According to the ancient historian Flavius Josephus, at the end of the revolt the Romans besieged the mountain and the Jewish rebels committed mass suicide. In this slide-illustrated lecture, we survey the history and archaeology of Masada, including the results of excavations in the Roman siege works which Magness co-directed in 1995. We conclude by considering the current debates surrounding Josephus’s mass suicide story.
Thursday, November 18, 2021, 7:30 pm, Pattee Auditorium, Room 100 Center for Science and Business (CSB), Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL 6142
Plans are to zoom this lecture live. Watch this space for further information.