An exhibition of finds from excavations at Masada and the Bar-Kochba caves will open Sunday at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Visitors to the museum will be able to see it through July 20. On exhibit will be mosaic floors from Herod’s palaces, priceless scrolls, jewelry, coins, lamps, cooking utensils, clothing and Roman catapult balls fired at the Jews of Masada by Roman legions.
The Israel Exploration Society in Israel and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York combined to bring the exhibit here. United States Chief Justice Earl Warren will be honored at a preview reception for the exhibit on Saturday and will be presented with a stone carving representing the theme of Masada. The reception will be sponsored by the Jewish Community Foundation and the regents and secretary of the Smithsonian, with Foundation president Charles E. Smith making the presentation to Mr. Warren.
For about 100 years, the lonely, 1,300-foot high rock of Masada, in the Judaean desert on the western shore of the Dead Sea, was a focal point of history. In 36 BCE, King Herod, fearing an uprising by the Jews and an attack by Antony and Cleopatra, built a fortress-palace atop the rock. And, in 73 CE, three years after the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, 960 Zealot defenders held the rock, finally killing themselves rather than surrender to the Romans, who besieged them.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
