Hello and thank you for downloading Witness with me Lucy Burns from the BBC World Service.

And today we're going back to the summer of 1963 and the start of the excavation of one of Israel's most important archaeological sites,

Masada by the Dead Sea. It started with an article in Britain's observer newspaper in August 1963.

The first phase of preparations has been completed in Israel for the most spectacular archaeological expedition ever made in the Middle East.

Excavation will begin in October at Masada, the rock fort near the Dead Sea where Jews made a last stand against the Romans from AD 70.

Anyone wishing to join for a minimum two-week period and at his own expense, except for food and lodging which the expedition will

provide, may apply by writing to P.O. Box 7041, Jerusalem, Israel. One of the thousands of people who responded to the call for volunteers

was 20-year-old Brit David Stacey, in search of an adventure.

It had been very cold in the winters previous to Masada and it just seemed a very nice idea

to be spending some time in the sun instead.

And did you have any prior connection to Israel at that point?

Absolutely none whatsoever. Absolutely none.

So the following year David and a friend set off hitchhiking and ended up in Israel. You had an instruction to meet in the

municipal park in Beersheva. You all showed up and looked around for the scruffiest sort of looking people with backpacks and so on.

And you were then transported to the foot of Masada.

Masada is a natural rock formation by the side of the dead sea.

Masada looks like a gigantic ship in the middle of the desert. It's a massive rocky outcrop with a flat top and it sort of comes to a point at the northern end and of course it's got sheer sides and it plunges down to the

level of the dead sea it was a magnificent place to be.

Masada is also a natural fortress.

King Herod built his summer palace there about 30 years before the birth of Christ

and a hundred years later it was the sight of a dark moment in Jewish history.

In the year 73 or 74 a group of Jewish rebels occupying the fortress were under siege by the Romans. First century historian Flavius Giusefus gave a graphic

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