HISTORY, MYTHOLOGY and

spacce/time ANOMALIES

THE HERODIUM

Herod the Great, King of the Jews, was a great builder. He built the second Temple in Jerusalem and the harbortown Ceasaria; his connection with Rome. The Herodium, his palace, theatre, fortress and grave, was too "young" to be reckoned one of the 7 Miracles of the World, but this artificial mountain, would certainly be a serious candidate.

http://youtu.be/cqiwOzwGdkM

HISTORIC 

In 40 BCE, after the Parthian conquest of Syria, Herod fled to Masada. On the way, at the location of Herodion, Herod clashed with the Parthians and emerged victorious. According to the Roman Jewish historian Josephus, he "built a town on that spot in commemoration of his victory, and enhanced it with wonderful palaces... and he called it Herodion after himself" (The Wars of the Jews I, Chapter 13).^[5]
Josephus describes Herodium as follows:

"This fortress, which is some sixty stadia^[6] distant from Jerusalem, is naturally strong and very suitable for such a structure, for reasonably nearby is a hill, raised to a (greater) height by the hand of man and rounded off in the shape of a breast. At intervals it has round towers, and it has a steep ascent formed of two hundred steps of hewn stone. Within it are costly royal apartments made for security and for ornament at the same time. At the base of the hill there are pleasure grounds built in such a way as to be worth seeing, among other things because of the way in which water, which is lacking in that place, is brought in from a distance and at great expense. The surrounding plain was built up as a city second to none, with the hill serving as an acropolis for the other dwellings." (The Wars of the Jews I, 21, 10; Antiquities of the Jews XIV, chapter 13.9).