Lying low at the Dead Sea, Jordan/Israel border

*WS 136: Lying low at the Dead Sea, Jordan/Israel border*

The Dead Sea is really a lake, forming a natural border between Jordan and Israel/West Bank. It is some 50 km long and up to 15 km wide. The surface of the water in the lake is around 430 m below sea level, making the shoreline the lowest point on earth. The lake itself is up to 300 m deep. The figures are taken from Wikipedia in 2020. The shoreline is receding quite rapidly. It was a much bigger lake during our visit in 2008. 

It is fed by the Jordan River. It has no outlet, dead. The salt content is nearly 10 times higher than water in a normal sea, and a person will just float on the surface because of the high density of the water. It is extremely painful if the water gets into your eyes because of the high salt content.

We were here in 2008 as part of the sight-seeing stops in our pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The mineral-rich black mud is also said to be good for skin care. Shown a friend floating and some muddy people!

Qumran is a village located in the desert at the north-western shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank. In the 1st and 2nd centuries BC, it was home to the Essenes, a small community of Jewish ascetic monastic brotherhood living in caves and tents. What make this place famous are the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1949 some shepherds discovered 7 ancient scrolls in a cave. Later archaeological excavations on the cliff faces found many more scrolls and these are called the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

These are parchment writings made some 2,000 years ago. The dry weather has helped in the preservation of the writing. They include most books of the Hebrew Bible and the sect’s own works on rules and codes of ethics. The scrolls are now kept in various Israeli museums. The scrolls proved that the Hebrew Bible and hence the Old Testaments (mostly taken from the Hebrew Bible) remained essentially unadulterated over 2,000 years. 

The place is now a national park with ongoing excavations everywhere. The cave right at the spur at the centre in the 4th photo is where the first scrolls were found by the shepherds. We were viewing it from quite a distance away. The last photo was rather interesting with the bright slanting lines of sunlight. The small museum was crowded. Not that we were curious to see the exhibits, it was simply scourging hot outside.