Christopher Wells

The infamous birthday banquet of Herod Antipas, which culminated in the beheading of St John the Baptist, took place in the royal city of Machaerus, east of the Dead Sea in what is now the country of Jordan. (St Matthew 14: 3-11)
Lost for more than a thousand years after it was destroyed by the Romans at the end of the First Jewish Revolt in 71/72 A.D., the site of Herod’s palace was definitively identified in 1968, when a German scholar discovered the remains of the siege wall erected by the Roman legions.
For more than a decade, Hungarian architect and archaeologist Dr Győző Vörös has led the excavation and conservation efforts at Machaerus, having won a contract from Jordan’s Royal Department of Antiquities.
“They contacted me in 2009 as an answer to the wish of His Holiness, the Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, as during his papal visit, he expressed his interest concerning Machaerus… the most important Gospel scene in Jordan,” said Dr Vörös, in an interview with Vatican News. “They wanted to have it seriously excavated and also discover the opportunities for monument presentation [and] the conservation of the ruins.”
Dr Vörös was in Rome to receive the prestigious Gold Medal of the Pontificate, presented by the Pontifical Academies, in recognition of his outstanding work on Machaerus, which has been published in three volumes.
He explained the historical significance of the death of John the Baptist, “the only Gospel passage which has a parallel narrative from the same era written by a non-Christian author,” the Jewish historian Josephus. The location of John’s execution was confirmed some 250 years later by the Christian writer Eusebius of Pamphilia.
“In addition to the uniqueness of its historical value, there are two unique characteristics” of Machaerus, said Dr Vörös. The first “is that it is an archaeological site [that has] remained as a time capsule… it’s unbelievable. It’s a miracle that you have a Gospel scene that has survived as an archaeological time capsule.”The site is also unique in that it affords historians – but also visitors – the opportunity to gain a truly accurate picture of a Gospel event.
Dr Vörös and his team have been able to present a reconstruction of Herod’s palace, the very place where the daughter of Herodias danced for Herod Antipas and his guests, and was promised the head of John the Baptist.
“These are Bible illustrations of reality, and this is the heart of the [archaeological] mission” at Marchaeus, said Dr Vörös. “There is no history without geography, without visible and visit-able historical monuments,” he said, adding that archaeological research is able to provide “the framework and the real context for the Gospels in the Holy Land.”

Exploring the ‘Fifth Gospel’ – the Holy Land
Recalling the words of Pope Francis, that the Holy Land is “the fifth Gospel” helping us to understand the first four, Dr Vörös said the sites of the Holy Land offer historical context not only for us “but for our children, for the next generation” for whom “we can provide religious books that are illustrated with historical reality.”
He emphasized the significance of the death of John the Baptist, which Jesus Himself compared to His own Passion and death.
“So, when we speak about the imprisonment and beheading of John the Baptist, it is somehow the precursor, of the event of the Calvary as well,” Dr Vörös said. “John was also the precursor of Jesus Christ with his sufferings, and it is not a theological fantasy. Jesus Himself gave the key to Machaerus to us, when He spoke about the sufferings of John the Baptist that the Son of Man will suffer similarly. So, it is a very important passage of the gospels and have it in our hands with its historical reality it is… It is, I am ready to say, a certain kind of 21st century gift of the Almighty God.”
Noting that we will soon mark the 2,000th anniversary of the martyrdom of St John the Baptist (who died in 28 or 29 A.D.), Dr Vörös said he hopes the archaeological site of Machaerus will be ready to be presented “in a very clear way, a very authentic way, which is most important” – and that he hopes, with the Jordanian authorities, that Machaerus “will be once again on the map of the Holy Land when the next Pope of Rome will visit this sacred archaeological site.”
An interview with Dr Győző Vörös

Thank you for joining us this morning here in Rome and Vatican Radio and yesterday you received the prize from the pontifical academy. Before we speak about that I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the work you have been doing.
As a simple Hungarian archaeologist, I had the privilege to be contracted by the Royal Department of Antiquities in Jordan for 20 years. They contracted me in 2009 as an answer to the wish of his Holiness, the Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, as during his papal visit to Jordan, he expressed his interest concerning Machaerus, or Macheronte in Italian; the most important Gospel scene in Jordan. And at that time, it was not an archaeological site that it was easy to visit. It was in the military buffer zone of the Dead Sea. So, they wanted to have it seriously excavated and also discover the opportunities for monument presentation, conservation of the ruins; and they were looking for someone who is not only an archaeologist but also an architect. And at that time, I was already working 15 years ago in the Levant, 10 years in Egypt, and then 5 years in Cyprus. At that time, I was the director of the Paphos excavations, the Greco-Roman capital of the site. And of course, as a Roman Catholic believer, I had very serious interest concerning this Gospel scene on the east bank of the Dead Sea. So that was an international competition, and I won on behalf of the Hungarian Academy of Arts in 2009.

Many people may not be familiar with Machaerus. Can you tell us the significance for the New Testament first of all?
There is a narrative account in the Gospels on the circumstances of the imprisonment and the death of John the Baptist, how Salome danced and John the Baptist was beheaded. This is the only Gospel passage which has a parallel narrative from the same era written by a non-Christian author. It is a unique situation that Josephus, the first-century Jewish philo-Roman historian wrote down very clearly that John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded by Herod Antipas in Machaerus.
The word itself is [derived] from the Greek makhaira, which means sword. So Machaerus, in the Latin form, is the historical place the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded in the Herodian royal city. But is very important that it is not only Josephus who testified that this Gospel scene happened on the east bank of the Dead Sea, in this very Herodian city; but [also] Eusebius of Pamphilia, the bishop of Caesarea Maritima, wrote down in 324 in the church history that, yes, John the Baptist was imprisoned and killed in Machaerus. So, we have the two most important historians of ancient Palestine, Josephus, and Eusebius, who both confirmed that it is the historical place, Machaerus, this Herodian royal city, where John the Baptist was imprisoned and killed.

But then the city, although it was very important at the time of the New Testament, was lost for some years…
Yes, the Herodian city was destroyed by the same Legion X Fretensis as Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Machaerus was destroyed during the winter of 71/72 and Machaerus completely disappeared from the maps. This is why it is extraordinary that Eusebius still speaks about the city, which nobody knew in the fourth century where it is. It was like that until 1968.
There was a fantastic German scholar, a Protestant archaeologist August Strobel, who visited the area, where a modern village, Mkāwer, is existing and since the name is resembling the ancient name there was an assumption that it would be possible that ancient Machaerus is also there. However, it was a Strobel, August Strobel, who had seen for the first time with his very sharp eyes that there is a circumvallation, siege wall around the site, very similar one that can be seen at Masada. And he wrote down in 1968 that in the epicentre of this circumvallation siege wall, there is a mountain and on the top of it has to be the ancient Herodian city of Machaerus, with the palace and the citadel, where the princess Salome danced, and where the tragic birthday banquet of Tetrarch Herod Antipas had to happen and our beloved St John the Baptist was beheaded.