CAVE AND MONASTERY OF LOTH

Like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, this place was the scene of some of the most dramatic events in the Old Testament, including the story of Abraham's nephew Lot. According to legend, his wife was turned into a statue of salt for disobeying God. She turned around in her flight to see Sodom in flames. The Bible records that Lot and his two daughters survived and found refuge in a cave near the small town of Zoar (Gawr as-Safi today). Lot's daughters gave birth to sons whose descendants would become the Ammonites and Moabites. Their kingdoms were located in what is now central Jordan. Byzantine Christians built a church dedicated to St. Lot in the sixth century on a hillside above the city. The famous Madaba mosaic, which depicts a map of Palestine, clearly places ancient Zoar on the site of present-day Gawr as-Safi. On the other hand, the two words Zoar and Segor are equivalent, and mean "small", one in Syriac, the other in Hebrew. It is therefore quite likely that the cave near Gawr as-Safi is the one once occupied by Abraham's nephew. The church was discovered by teams of archaeologists a few years ago. It seems to have been abandoned in the middle of the 8th century, probably after the great earthquake that shook the region. The cave and the monastery can be visited.