Dead Sea Plain, Jordan
Sodom and Gomorrah
Salt flats and burnt hills at the south end of the Dead Sea, where the Bible places the cities God destroyed.
Biblical significance
The southern basin of the Dead Sea is one of the strangest landscapes on earth: salt pans, sulphur nodules, and ridges of collapsed marl standing over water 400 metres below sea level. Tradition and several excavated tell sites — Bab edh-Dhra, Numeira and, more controversially, Tall el-Hammam — place the cities of the plain here.
Whatever your reading of the archaeology, the ground itself preaches. Abraham stood over this valley and bargained for it; Lot lingered in it; and the smoke that rose from it became Scripture's standing image of judgement.
Scripture
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Open in YouVersion →Excerpts from the World English Bible. Full text opens in the YouVersion Bible app.
Best time to go
November to March — summer heat on the plain is severe.
Visitor notes
Best visited as a drive along the Dead Sea Highway with stops at Lot's Cave monastery and the Lowest Point on Earth museum near Safi.
Coordinates
31.2600, 35.4200
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Sodom and Gomorrah on film
This chapter of the documentary begins at Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Sodom and Gomorrah on the map
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