In the winter of 143 b.c., cold rain and limestone mud complicated the recovery of Jonathan's remains from the hills of Bascama. Simon assumed command of the rebellion, directing laborers to quarry heavy blocks from the Judean bedrock while imperial Seleucid troops raided the supply roads. Men worked with heavy masonry hammers and iron chisels on the exposed ridge at Modi'in, cutting ashlar blocks to fortify the frontier against Greek incursions.
Trypho executed Jonathan after demanding a ransom of one hundred talents of silver, roughly five thousand seven hundred pounds of metal equivalent to sixteen hundred years of a common laborer's wages. Simon retrieved his brother's bones for burial in the family plot, then immediately mobilized his militia to construct siege engines against the fortified walls of Gazara. His soldiers rolled a wooden siege tower against the ramparts, breached the defenses, and forced the Gentile garrison to surrender. In Jerusalem, the Greek soldiers starving inside the Akra citadel capitulated in May of 141 b.c., ending twenty-six years of foreign military occupation.
The monument erected at Modi'in consisted of seven pyramids built from polished white stone, surrounded by monolithic columns carved with suits of armor and war galleys. This massive construction functioned as an elevated coastal daymark for Gentile sailors navigating the Mediterranean Sea rather than a private cemetery. Simon converted family grief into a hardened border marker, using monumental architecture to signal territorial sovereignty to passing trade vessels.
A stone monument built to honor the dead must be thick enough to shield the living.
The clearance of the Jerusalem citadel shifted military control of the temple mount back to native defenders. The seven limestone towers at Modi'in remained visible from the coast for centuries before tectonic shifting and weather stripped the polished stone from their cores.