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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily

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the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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For twelve long summers, workers labored in the sun-baked earth of western Syria, digging,

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probing, turning back the centuries.

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An Italian archaeologist, Professor Paolo Matti excavated Ebla, capital of a previously

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unknown Bronze Age kingdom.

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Then in the fall of 1974, as his thirteenth season of digging was about to end, he unexpectedly

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unearthed the missing piece to an ancient biblical puzzle.

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After four thousand years, a written record, independent of the Bible, confirmed the existence

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of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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One crucial question remains, where did they exist?

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In four thousand years of recorded history, Jerusalem has been ruled by Turkish sultans,

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Arab sheiks, Roman consuls, Crusader princes and Hebrew kings.

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Each reign left a mark.

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Yet the city itself remains the sacred source of three great faiths.

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Its walls enclose Solomon's temple, the stations of the cross, the dome of the rock, names

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that date to biblical times.

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In Jerusalem's streets, past and present flow visibly together.

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Jesus walked here, and Muhammad and David.

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Its shrines are evidence of a vast and ancient history.

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And before them, man humbles himself.

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The actual stories of the past remain shrouded in myth.

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The land guards mysteries, for it is old, older even than the earliest accounts preserved

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in holy scripture.

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East and south of Jerusalem, fertile fields turn to stony wilderness.

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Here, ancient man left few traces.

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Across this arid expanse, roam modern Bedouins, people who hardly differ from herdsmen who

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wandered this same mountainous scrubland in biblical times.

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No mad ways have remained constant, the endless foraging for pasture, for water, for new campsites,

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and then, inevitably, moving on.

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They resist all change, clinging to their simple black tents, their animals, to time-tested

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traditions.

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Bedouin storytellers maintained there were once lush valleys here, but they themselves

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have stripped the land by gathering firewood, feeding their goat herds.

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They have turned green fields to desert, still the nomads endure as they have for countless

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generations, somehow finding nourishment in the wilderness.

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Stories of the land and of the past are clouded by the legends of nomadic tribesmen and might

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have remained obscure but for the searching of scientists.

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A series of spectacular finds began to open doors to a forgotten past.

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At Masada, archaeologists discovered a long-lost fortress, the final desert stronghold of Jewish

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resistance to the Roman Empire.

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North along the barren dead seashore, more ruins were unearthed, believed to be the

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monastery of legendary mystics, the Essenes, whose gentle teachings the young Jesus might

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have studied.

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They, too, had vanished and vellipped by the desert.

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Then in 1947 came another sensational discovery, a cache of Essenes texts hidden in a remote

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cave, further proof of man's long presence in the wilderness.

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The Bedouin alone were not surprised.

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High on cliffs overlooking the dead sea, from time immemorial, nomad folklore has traditionally

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labeled a jutting thumb of rock salt, Lot's wife.

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Somewhere here, somewhere within sight of this rock, according to an ancient story preserved

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in the biblical accounts of Genesis, once existed a lush and fertile plain and a league

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of wealthy cities known as Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Their remains have never been found.

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The biblical accounts are clear.

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As the Hebrew elder Abraham led his nomadic tribe across the rocky hills, his nephew,

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Lot, wandered down into a fertile plain, the valley of Sodom.

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Biblical storytellers peopled it with rich and decadent townsmen, sensualists, celebrants

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of the profane.

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The geography is explicit, by the salt sea, under the Moab hills.

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But for 4,000 years, man has searched in vain for some trace of the wicked cities of the

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plain, for evidence that they were something more than biblical parable.

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One of Israel's foremost archaeologists, Dr. Avram Biran.

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Well, let me make something quite clear before we say anything else.

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Archaeology is not here to prove or disprove the Bible.

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The Bible, as a book of divine inspiration, needs no proof.

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But the Bible contains a lot of historical memories.

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And what archaeology does is to illustrate these memories.

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The amazing thing about archaeological research has been that the more we excavate, the more

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we uncover the past, the more we get evidence that these historical memories are correct.

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Archaeology seeks out small clues to the past.

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Sun, rain, and wind have etched this land.

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Man seems to have made only a slight impression.

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Yet the soil can reveal layer after layer of cultural sediment.

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The high-water marks of armies, conquerors, once mighty civilizations.

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From these long-buried clues, often no more than a few scattered stones, archaeologists,

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like detectives, must piece together ancient mysteries.

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The first break in solving the puzzling biblical legend of Sodom and Gomorrah came in the fall

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of 1974.

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Near the modern Syrian town of Tel-Mardik, a chain of laborers employed by an Italian

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archaeological expedition cut slowly into a tell.

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A man-made hill composed of the stratified remains of past civilizations.

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Created by professors Paolo Mati and Giovanni Petinato of the University of Rome, the dig

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had gradually uncovered the city of Ebla, large and wealthy capital of a previously unknown

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Bronze Age Canaanite kingdom.

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Then, near the end of their 13th excavating season, the unearthed treasure far more priceless

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than the mute riches of gold and silver.

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The Royal Archives of Ebla.

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Treaties, legal documents, tax records were preserved on 16,000 clay tablets covered in

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wedge cuneiform, an early form of writing pressed by palace scribes into wet clay.

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The tablets listed names associated with the early accounts of Genesis.

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The find was astounding.

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Trade records from the 3rd millennium BC documented business transactions with the cities of the

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plain.

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For the first time in 40 centuries, sources independent of the Bible confirmed the existence

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of Sodom and Gomorrah and placed them near the Dead Sea.

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The veil of mystery at long last had been lifted.

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Yet, if Sodom and Gomorrah existed, what happened to them?

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Here where biblical accounts placed them, there exists today only a vast wasteland divided

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by the Israeli Jordanian frontier, the Dead Sea, 1300 feet below sea level, the lowest

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point on the earth's surface.

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Its brackish waters are completely lifeless, 25% salt, it drains a desert table land where

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temperatures often reach 125 degrees.

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The Bedouins say not even a bird can fly across the Dead Sea without dying.

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Yet the Bible places Sodom and Gomorrah exactly here.

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Sodom, 1900 BC.

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Motion pictures have depicted the tumultuous populace of the wicked cities of the plain.

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Their reputation has survived 40 centuries.

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Embedded in this legendary image is the solution to the mysterious end of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Frescoes, painted in 1900 BC inside the tomb of Egypt's border governor, depict new tribes,

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nomads who had begun to emerge from the trackless wilderness.

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The Egyptians called them Habiru.

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The desert's precarious natural balance allows no excess, no room for deviation from the unending

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basic struggle to survive.

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Washed by the desert's harsh, immutable laws, the nomads' faith reflected the overreaching

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sky, vast and formless.

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Embedded by stern patriarchs, the tribal caravans searched for new pastors.

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How inviting a tree-lined horizon must have seemed to dusty Hebrew wanderers 40 centuries

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ago.

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The lush lands they entered were held by a people known to us as the Canaanites.

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Villars of fertile fields, clever artisans, sophisticated townsmen, such people likely

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inhabited the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Fertility lay at the core of their religion.

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We know that they performed ecstatic rites that openly attempted to fuse the sensual

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and the spiritual.

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Their gods and goddesses have survived them.

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Baal, mighty thunderer, bringer of life-giving reign, chief deity of ancient Canaan.

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This image of the great mother symbolized the fertile earth.

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Goddess of many names, Ishtar, Isis, Astarti, her heavenly sign was the planet Venus.

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Within her, the forces of life and death mystically entwined.

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The gods guarded her mysteries.

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Among such men went to dwell the Hebrew lot.

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According to the biblical story recreated in film, angels came to Sodom to find Lot.

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They warned him to abandon the city, to renew his nomad ways.

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It was torn by doubt.

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Sodom's excesses repelled the angels.

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The Sodomites threatened to attack the heavenly visitors.

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They are the men of the kingdom of the city.

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Yes, bring them out, uncle Ashtar.

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Bring them out, that we may know them.

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Whosoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place.

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For the Lord has sent us to destroy it.

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A flash of brilliant light blinded the crowd.

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Drive. Take your wife and your two daughters who are here.

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Lest they be consumed in the punishment of the city.

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I cannot see.

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I cannot see.

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Leave your life.

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Leave to the hills lest thou be consumed.

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Look not behind thee.

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Absolutely faith was demanded of Lot.

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The angels warned his family to flee without once looking back.

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Lot's wife, Weber, turned according to biblical accounts into a pillar of salt.

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As if to confirm the biblical contention, there are columns of rock salt overlooking the Dead Sea today.

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A portrait of the Dead Sea was made from a NASA Earth Resources satellite.

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The waters are divided by a spit of land called by the Bedouin Lodge.

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The water is the source of the water.

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The Bedouin Lodge is the source of the Earth Resources satellite.

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The waters are divided by a spit of land called by the Bedouin L.L.San Batang.

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To the south along the shore, five riverbeds score the rocky land.

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Since biblical times, five freshwater streams have flowed down from the Moab Hills.

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Could they once have continued onto a fertile plain, watering towns, irrigating lush fields?

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To the north of the L.L.San spit lie depths up to 1,300 feet.

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Yet the waters of the southern half are less than 10 feet deep.

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Forty centuries ago, was L.L.San the Dead Sea's south shore?

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What could have destroyed its banks?

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Tar, mineral pitch, bubbles to the surface off L.L.San.

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Nearby, modern Israelis have struck oil.

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There are also rich deposits of natural gas.

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The Israeli proprietor of a Dead Sea hot springs.

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Here in Ngedi, we have the sulfur spring. Nature water came from the ground.

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And you can see here in the water, you can see the sulfur.

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You can see the sulfur. If you burn this sulfur, it gives you poison gas.

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In biblical times, sulfur was known as brimstone.

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Pitch, oil, gas, sulfur. A volatile mixture.

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Dr. Bruce Bolt, internationally acclaimed seismologist.

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The extraordinary river valley of the Dead Sea is one of the deepest points that we have on the surface of the Earth.

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It's bounded on the western side by a great fault which runs from the Gulf of Elyat up towards Antioch.

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And this has been the site of many great earthquakes.

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Could an earthquake have been a link in a chain of events that led to a massive explosion in 1900 BC?

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Earthquakes are produced by the slow building up of strain in the rocks of the Earth,

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such as occurs along the Rift Valley in Palestine.

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However, it's been suggested that the tidal forces between the other planets and the sun and the moon on the Earth

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might subtly vary the strain field and trigger earthquakes.

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There have been many reports associated with earthquakes of lights in the sky, flashes of lightning, glowing skies and so on.

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But when I read the biblical account of the destruction of Solomon Gamorah,

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I can reconstruct something like this in my mind that there might have been a very great earthquake.

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The actual mechanism for this is not at all understood.

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There could have been a great avalanche which came down from the Rift.

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The opening up of the Rift might have released some gases, petroleum gases.

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The fires would have ignited this. There could have been explosions.

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The sulfur, which is of course brimstone, might have well caught on fire.

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And sulfurous gases would have been given out by the fires.

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So I think if we put together all the natural phenomena which could occur there south of the Dead Sea,

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we can see that as the years went by there could have been an account grow up very similar to that,

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which is briefly given in the Bible.

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The Rift is a very common phenomenon in the world.

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It is a phenomenon that is very common in the world.

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It is a phenomenon that is very common in the world.

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It is a phenomenon that is very common in the world.

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It is a phenomenon that is very common in the world.

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It is a phenomenon that is very common in the world.

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It is a phenomenon that is very common in the world.

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Well, it is fascinating for scientists to work as detectives on these ancient problems.

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The situation is clearly so complicated that to reach the ultimate cause of such a catastrophe

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is to stretch every piece of scientific knowledge that we have at the present time.

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There is an ultimate cause for it.

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For many people, the ultimate cause would be God.

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Clues point to the Dead Sea, to a solution to the mystifying biblical puzzle.

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Yet no material evidence of Sodom and Gomorrah, not a single blackened pottery shard, has ever been found here.

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Israeli archaeologist Dr. Avram Biran.

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Now the difficulties are that undoubtedly Sodom and Gomorrah are covered under the silt of the Dead Sea.

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And until something happens to remove the silt at the bottom of the Dead Sea on the southern part, which is not very deep,

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I don't think we have a chance of finding Sodom and Gomorrah.

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However, if we do, as for example we are doing now when removing some of the water for the manufacture of potash and bomb eyes,

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and the earth will be uncovered, it is very possible that under one or two or three feet of silt,

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you will find remains of the city of the second millennium BC, which would be Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Coming up next in search of continues with a probe into the possibility that Joshua really did bring the walls of Jericho tumbling down,

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then agents race against time to stop a rash of drug tampering on FBI The Untold Stories.

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And later tonight, Top Secret Missions of the CIA takes you on an operation to kidnap a terrorist at 9 Eastern 10 Pacific.