Sodom, gomorrah and the other lost cities of the plain - a climatic perspective

Abstract

Certain aspects of the biblical story of the Cities of the Plain have in recent years become widely accepted. Among them is the placing of those cities in the southern basin of the Dead Sea, the assumption that those cities are now covered by Dead Sea water and, in particular, the belief that their destruction was due to catastrophic geological causes, such as an earthquake. The Bible emphasizes the agricultural richness of the Jordan plain prior to the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah and its catastrophic transformation into a wasteland. Thus, stripped of ethical and religious overtones, the scenario is that of a rapid climatic change that converted a densely inhabited and richly watered area into an infertile salt playa. The region northeast and southeast of Jericho, which today is quite barren as a result of the upward movement of salty ground water but which contains some of the World's earliest known agricultural settlements, fits such a picture. Dating the Sodom event to approximately the 23rd-21st centuries B.C. supports the idea that a major climatic change that occurred between the Early and Middle Bronze Ages and which resulted in profound transformations in the Middle East such as the collapse of the Ancient Kingdom of Egypt, the invasion of the Fertile Crescent by the Semitic desert nomads, and the collapse of Early Bronze Age civilization in Palestine - is also responsible for the Sodom story. Although the data are far from complete, desiccation during this period is indicated by palynological evidence pointing to the decimation of forests in Northern Israel, paleobotanical evidence from Southern Israel, the deposition of salt layers in the Dead Sea, the abandonment of almost all settlements in the Negev Desert of Southern Israel, the Jordan valley and Southern Jordan, except those which were associated with perennial springs, and further afield the drastic lowering of the level of Lake Moeris in Lower Egypt. This scenario does not exclude the possibility that a major earthquake - which may have occurred during this period - was considered to be the cause of the final physical destruction of the Cities of the Plain, delivering a coup de grace to a collapsing society, and which became through the mists of time and legend, the only agent of destruction.