Travel Guide Mount Sodom

Skirting the southern basin of the Dead Sea, routeno. 90 passes factories that extract minerals from the Dead Sea, including potash, used as fertilizer. It then skirts a desert of yellow sand, planted with oases, palm trees and acacias. These factories are a good landmark for locating the sloping track that leads to the summit of Mount Sodom and the supposed site of the mythical Sodom and Gomorrah.According to the Bible, both cities were destroyed by God in a deluge of fire and brimstone to punish their depraved inhabitants (Genesis 18-26). Warned of his intention, Abraham begged God not to do anything, believing that there were at least a few righteous people left in these two cities, whose inhabitants were distinguished by their great immorality. Only Lot, his wife and children were warned of God's intention to destroy them. They fled the city with orders not to turn back. Lot's wife couldn't help herself and was immediately turned into a statue of salt.There is no trace of the destroyed cities on site, but the view from Mount Sodom is exceptional. This is part of the Judean Desert Nature Reserve. This mountain range of salt rock is some 8 km long and 5 km wide, 226 m above the Dead Sea but at an altitude of 170 below sea level, as it is usually understood. The Mount Sodom Lookout is 5 km up a steep dirt road from Route 90. The view of the evaporation basins below is unrivalled. On the opposite Jordanian shore, you can see the town of Es Sapi (Safi) and its cultivated fields, the Jordanian potash factory, Jebel Safah (1,252 m) and Jebel Hanzira (1,225 m), part of the Moab Mountains. An orientation table is available.Further south, the Moshe Novomeiski Visitor Center houses a magnificent museum describing the history of the factories built on the Dead Sea. Opened in 2021, the new contemporary and elegant structure is the result of an effort to reconstruct and preserve the original site of the Potash Company, the first potash factory set up by Moshe Novomeiski. This Zionist engineer from Siberia was the first to take an interest in these resources, at the very beginning of the 20th century.