A monastery dedicated to Lot, (the hero from Genesis who escapes God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah) has been discovered on a remote mountainside in western Jordan near the Dead Sea. The excavation is funded by the British Museum, and has uncovered a basilica with semicircular apses and a grotto that early Christians believed was the cave where the nephew of Abraham and his daughters took refuge. A 7th century monastery was discovered during the excavation of a stone reservoir near the south-eastern end of the Dead Sea. Decorated with vines and animals, mosaic floors take the Basilica to 691 AD, a period when monastic groups were developing in the region.
Despite its arid location, the site was fed by a spring that irrigated terraces where monks grew grapes, apricots, and olives. Seeds and bones found at the site reveal 25 different foods, including meat and fish were served to visiting pilgrims. Archaeologists also discovered. a 7 cornered pulpit, coins, fine pottery and fragments of hanging lamps.
One cave yielded a clay pot and drinking cups dating to the Bronze Age when Lot is said to have lived. Did his daughter seduce him in this cave and give birth to sons whose descendants populated ancient Jordan?
From Archaeology Magazine
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