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 apse and a grotto that early Christians believed was the cave where Lot, 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 date 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 which were served to visiting pilgrims. Archaeologists also discovered. a 7 cornered pulpit, coins, fine pottery and fragments of hanging lamps.
Two angels were invited to stay at Lot’s home in Sodom. The people came and demanded the angels were given to them to have sex. Lot offered his two daughters to the crowd instead. They fled the violence to seek safety in a cave, so the story goes, both daughters got Lot drunk and had sex with him! The eldest daughter gave birth to a son, Moab who become the patriarch of the Moabites, and the younger daughter also gave birth to a son, Ben Ammi, patriarch of the Ammonites.
One cave yielded a clay pot and drinking cups dating to the Bronze Age when Lot is said to have lived. Did his daughters seduce him in this cave and give birth to sons whose descendants populated ancient Jordan?
From Archaeology Magazine
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