The monastery
Around the cave.
Ana al'ain — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fallaner — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ana al'ain — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ana al'ain — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Happa — CC BY 3.0 · Fallaner — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fallaner — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ana al'ain — CC BY-SA 4.0
A Byzantine monastery on a rocky slope above Ghor es-Safi, southeast of the Dead Sea, built around a natural cave that Byzantine Christians believed was where the Prophet Lot, peace be upon him, took refuge after the destruction of his people. The monastery dates from the fifth to seventh centuries and has a church with a mosaic floor whose two inscriptions record its building in 606 and a renovation in 691. Finds show the cave was lived in far earlier, from the Bronze Age. A long stepped path climbs up from the foot of the hill, and the top looks over the farms of the Ghor and the southern end of the Dead Sea. At the foot of the hill stands the Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth, opened in 2012. The museum shows Bronze Age pottery some 5,000 years old, Greek and Roman-era textiles, Christian gravestones from the ancient town of Zoara, and mosaics. The area is very hot in summer, so go in the morning.
Around the cave.
In the church.
At the foot.
Deir Ain Abata, Ghor es-Safi
Byzantine Christians believed this cave was where the Prophet Lot, peace be upon him, took refuge after his people were destroyed, and built a monastery and church around it.