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Lots Cave

Lot’s Cave
On a hillside above the town of Zoar (modern day safi), Byzantine Christians built a church and monastery dedicated to Saint Lot. The complex was built around the cave where Lot and his daughters found refuge .

Lot’s Cave and monastery: Sodom and Gomorrah were two of the wickedest cities in the world. God therefore decided to destroy them both, but there was just one good family in the city, so God decided to save them. Lot and his family were told to flee the city, but not to look back. Unfortunately his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. After escaping, Lot and his daughters hid in a cave where they watched the awesome destruction of the wicked cities. Now the cave in which Lot and his daughters hid has been discovered; or rather in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, a cave was located, which was deemed to be Lot’s cave, and a monastery was built around it.

This monastery has now been discovered with some very fine mosaic pavements, with interesting inscriptions. However, part of the monastery overlay the cave and the archaeologists entered the cave and excavated under the floor. There, to their surprise, they discovered some Middle Bronze Age pottery of precisely the right period for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.