Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

There is now a general consent that Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim were situated north of the Dead Sea, in the Kikkar or Plain of the Jordan. There are old maps which represent these cities as situated at the bottom of the Dead Sea waters, and yet enveloped in flames! Popular ignorance imagines that the bitumen which rises to the surface of the waters is a relic of the agency which effected the destruction. And until recently even the best scholars supposed the cities to lie beneath the shallow part of the sea, south of the Lisan peninsula. All such theories are disproved by the geological investigation, which shows that the Dead Sea is much older than any date which can be assigned to the destruction of the cities, and that the surface of the water has been constantly diminishing in area and sinking to lower levels.

There is nothing in the Bible which should lead us to look for the cities south of the Dead Sea, where the Crusaders placed them, or east of it, or anywhere but north and in the Kikkar. When Abraham and Lot talked together concerning the disputes between their herdsmen, and decided to go different ways with their flocks, “Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the Plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered ... until thou comest unto Zoar.” It was clearly shown by Sir George Grove, in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” that the Plain of the Jordan here spoken of is not the Arabah, in which the Dead Sea reposes, but the Kikkar or “Round” of country north of it. The position of Abraham and Lot at the time was on a mount east of Bethel; and as the site of Bethel is known, it was not difficult to find the mount east of it. It was reasonably identified by Rev. Canon Williams, and his conclusions were confirmed in 1865 by Colonel Sir C. Wilson. It has been shown that if the cities had been south of the Dead Sea, human vision could not possibly have extended so far, to distinguish anything. But north of the sea, in the Round or Plain, Lot would be able to perceive them. Accordingly, when the friendly conference ended, he journeyed eastward from the mount near Bethel, in order to reach his new home in Sodom.

The vision of Lot had extended across the plain, to Zoar and no farther, because the plain was bounded by the high mountains of Moab. Dr Tristram believes that he has identified Zoar, the fifth city of the Plain, the “little city” to which Lot fled after the convulsion. Standing on Mount Nebo, he detected the ruins a little in front of him, almost in a line with Jericho. The ruins were on a low brow of ground, and thus correspond to the description that Lot rested in this city on his way to the mountains, and afterwards went up into the mountain and dwelt in a cave. The ruins are still called Ziara, which does not differ much from the Greek spelling Ζωαρα, nor very widely from the Hebrew.

Is it possible to discover any relics of the four larger cities? Although destroyed by fire, they may not have been utterly annihilated, any more than Pompeii; but if their remains are hiding beneath the dust, the dust keeps its secret well. Major Conder rode day by day over almost every acre of ground between Jericho and the Dead Sea, and could not detect any mound or sign of a buried city. The whole was a white desert, except near the hills, where rich herbage grows after the rains. The time of year was most favourable for such exploration, because no long grass existed to hide any ruins. But in all that plain he found no ruin, except the old monastery of St John and a little hermit’s cave.

This description leaves out of account a remarkable group of tells, or mounds of earth and rubbish, strewn over with ruins, existing in the neighbourhood of Jericho. They are seven in number, and one of them is not far from Elisha’s Fountain, now called Ain es Sultan. One would imagine that the exploration of these mounds might yield valuable results; but nobody undertakes the work. It is true that some excavations made by Sir Charles Warren only proved the existence of sun-dried bricks; and because the mounds occur generally where the soil is alluvial, Conder regards them as piles of refuse bricks, and nothing more; but Sir J. W. Dawson, on visiting the place, noticed numerous flint chips in the mound, and Sir C. Warren, when presiding at my Guildford lecture, publicly expressed the opinion that many small objects of great interest would probably be found if the stuff were sifted.

But if the ruins of the Cities of the Plain are not discoverable, their names appear to linger in the district, slightly disguised as Arabic words, and applying to portions of the ground.

Conder justly remarks that the cities would probably be situated near fresh-water springs, and the great spring of ’Ain Feshkhah, on the north-west of the Dead Sea, is a probable site for one of them. The great bluff not far south of the spring is called Tubk ’Amriyeh by the Bedawin, and the neighbouring valley Wady ’Amriyeh. This word is radically identical with the Hebrew Gomorrah, or Amorah as it is spelt in one passage (Gen. x. 19), meaning, according to some authorities, “depression,” according to others, “cultivation.”

Admah means “red earth,” a description which would hardly apply to the ground near the Dead Sea. But there is no reason why all the four cities should be close to the Dead Sea. A convulsion overthrowing cities near the Sea would probably be felt a long way up the Jordan Valley, owing to the line of fault. Conder has pointed out, too, that the term Kikkar is applied in the Bible to the Jordan Valley as far north as Succoth. A “city Adam” is noticed in the Book of Joshua as being beside Zaretan; the name Ed Damieh applies to the neighbourhood of the Jordan ford east of Kurn Surtabeh, about 23 miles up the valley; and it has always seemed possible to Conder that Adam and Admah were one and the same. I would add a suggestion of my own in support of the view that Admah was some distance up the Jordan Valley. The passage Gen. x. 19 describes the boundary of Canaan, beginning at Sidon, following the coast line to Gaza, striking thence eastward to the Plain of the Jordan, and then proceeding up the Jordan Valley to Dan or Lasha—and the passage may be freely rendered thus,—“And the border of the Canaanite was from Sidon; thence you go towards Gerar, as far as Gaza; thence you go toward Sodom; then by Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboim, unto Dan.”[14] As Gerar was beyond Gaza southward, the boundary only went toward it; and as Sodom was beyond Jordan eastward, the boundary only went toward Sodom; there was no need to say it stopped at the river, for that was obvious. It then follows the course of the river from the Dead Sea to the source of the stream. And then the northern boundary is known without description. If this rendering holds good, then Gomorrah was north-west of the Dead Sea, on a line joining Gaza with Sodom; and the boundary of the Canaanites, after reaching Gomorrah, touched Admah and Zeboim, and continued northward to the grotto at Banias.

Zeboim means “hyenas,” and is identical with the Arabic Dub’a. For this reason Conder asks whether it may not have been situated at the cliff just above the plain, near the site of Roman Jericho, for that is now called Shakh ed Dub’a, “lair of the Hyena.” If I am right in my reading of Gen. x. 19, Zeboim should be northward of Admah—unless two names so often coupled together may have their order transposed. Grove reminds us that the Valley of Zeboim (the name spelt a little differently) was a ravine or gorge apparently east of Michmas, described in 1 Sam. xiii. 18. It appears to be overlooked in the discussion that Zeboim is mentioned in Nehemiah xi. 34, in the same group with Hadid, Lod, and Ono, among the places occupied by the children of Benjamin, while in Neh. vii. 37, these three places are named between Jericho and Senaah. But if the Lod in this passage is to be regarded as Lydda in the Plain of Sharon, the grouping of the places affords us no guidance.

Sodom alone, as Conder goes on to say, remains without a suggestion, and he finds no trace of it west of the Jordan. He notes, however, that the word Siddim is apparently the same with the Arabic Sidd, which is used in a peculiar sense by the Arabs of the Jordan Valley as meaning “cliffs” or banks of marl, such as exist along the southern edge of the plains of Jericho, the ordinary meaning being “dam” or obstruction. Thus the Vale of Siddim might well, so far as its name is concerned, have been situated in the vicinity of the northern shores of the Dead Sea.