Machaerus II: The Hungarian Archaeological Mission in the Light of the American-Baptist and Italian-Franciscan Excavations and Surveys. Final Report 1968-2014

The current monograph is the direct continuation of the initial volume in the Machaerus academic monograph-series: Machaerus I: History, Archaeology and Architecture of the Fortified Herodian Royal Palace and City Overlooking the Dead Sea in Transjordan (Collectio Maior Series No. 53). The intention of the author unbrokenly remained the same: to elucidate the blurred, historical scene of the Gospels, and present it as authentic as possible for the future generations. The Reader through these pages will be convinced that since the spring of 1968, when Machaerus was still a virgin, untouched archaeological site, the development of the excavation field work can be tracked consistently, the uncovered monuments in the archaeological site are genuine and reliable, and all deriving from the archaeological time capsule from ca. 90 BC to 71 AD. As archaeology is a visual discipline, we had to use a lot of illustration once again. The present work has five integral parts, all of which are the artistic, scientific and field research results of the last three years: 2013, 2014 and 2015.