Machaerus (2)

Machaerus

This place, represented by the modern Makaur, is fully described by Tristram (Land of Moab, page 271 sq.). The fortress stands on a round hill at the eastern end of a narrow and isolated ridge, on which the inhabited city must have been built. It is very different in character from any other ruins in Moab. Nothing remains but a few courses of stones above the foundations. But the whole building material has been collected by the hand of man into one prodigious mass on the crest of the ridge, where it remains in wild desolation, a monument of the vengeance taken by the Roman legions against the last desperate patriots of the Jewish revolts. The outline of the fortress may still be traced very clearly, and in it two dungeons, one of them deep, and its sides scarcely broken in. One of them must have been the prison-house of the Baptist.

⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.