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Black and white photograph. "Masada," the ABC Television Network's powerful eight-hour dramatization of a stand for freedom that has echoed through the ages, was filmed primarily in the Judean desert, within sight of the mountain itself. The "ABC Novel for Television" airs over four consecutive nights, Sunday, April 5, Monday, April 6, Tuesday, April 7 and Wednesday, April 8 (all times 9:00-11:00 p.m.); the film set near the Dead Sea was painstakingly reproduced from the incredible findings made during the 1960s by archaeologist Yigel Yadin. In these photos of the site, then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion accompanies the archaeologist on a visit to the palace King Herod built on the rock, 1300 feet above the desert floor, walking the same path that the heroes of Masada trod almost 2,000 years ago, where Yadin and his associates painstakingly dug away centuries of rocks and dirt to restore the original outlines (top, l. to r.). (Bottom, left to right) The remarkable restoration includes the mosaic floor of the palace, arrowheads used in the last-ditch defense as the patriots tried to hold off the invading Roman army, and the huge cistern (note the tiny figure of a man) which held the water that made the freedom fighters' long defiance possible. JP 3/10/81. ABC Public Relations.

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