Lot's Cave

The Monastery of St Lot is a Byzantine-period monastic site near the Dead Sea in Jordan, at the entrance to a natural cave, which Catholics believed to have been the one where Lot and his daughters sought shelter after Sodom was destroyed [1]. The monastery, dating to the 5th-7th centuries, is centered around a basilical church and overlooks from a steep slope the southeastern Dead Sea and the modern town of Safi in Jordan [1]. The oldest material found inside the cave suggests a sizable Early and Middle Bronze Age presence, followed by Nabataean pottery, which is indicative of a settlement there during the first centuries BC and AD [1]. Two inscriptions on the church's mosaic floor bear dates from the 7th century: construction in April 606, and a renovation in Xanthikos (roughly May) 691 [1]. Habitation only ceased after the Early Abbasid period [1]. The monastery had a large basilical church 18 x 17 meters long, a reservoir, a hostel complex, and access to a wide range of foods including fruits, meats, and fish from the Red Sea [1].