in the Jericho area. Marks in Hebrew on these and other elements attest to the Jewish origin of the stonemasons. Leave the building, turn right and go up to the main entrance to the northern complex 3 . This area includes the storerooms, administrative center,bathhouse, and Northern Palace, to which only those close to Herod were allowed entry. Pass the entrance and turn right to an interior courtyard. East of the courtyard is a large hall which was originally decorated with plaster stucco reliefs and apparently served as a reception hall for visitors to the fortress. At its center is a model of the reconstructed northern complex. This spot has a magnificent view from this spot eastward to the Dead Sea and the Mountains of Moab. The “commandant’s headquarters” 4 is located left of the entrance. It consists of a series of rooms decorated with frescoes that may have served as offices to monitor the unloading of goods and scrutinize visitors arriving at the northern complex. As elsewhere in the Classical world, the walls of the major structures at Masada were covered with frescoes, created by painting the still-wet plaster after it had been prepared. The bold colors were absorbed into the plaster as it dried. Most of the designs were geometric or imitation marble, with a small number of floral designs. Herod’s artists clearly avoided human images. Turn left to the storerooms complex 5 – This group of 29 long rooms surrounded by corridors was built by Herod to hold food, wine and oils, and even raw materials and weapons if needed, enough to supply 10,000 fighters. As Josephus describes them: "For here had been stored a mass of corn, amply sufficient to last for years, abundance of wine and oil, besides every variety of pulse and piles of dates" (Josephus Flavius, The Jewish War 7, 296).
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