Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T02:41:26.298Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Historic Dead Sea Level Fluctuations Calibrated with Geological and Archaeological Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Amos Frumkin  and
Yoel Elitzur
Amos Frumkin
Affiliation:
Geography Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel, 91905
Yoel Elitzur
Affiliation:
Eretz-Israel Studies Department, Herzog College, Alon Shevut, Israel, 90433
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Dead Sea, the Holocene terminal lake of the Jordan River catchment, has fluctuated during its history in response to climatic change. Biblical records, calibrated by radiocarbon-dated geological and archaeological evidence, reinforce and add detail to the chronology of the lake-level fluctuations. There are three historically documented phases of the Dead Sea in the Biblical record: low lake levels ca. 2000–1500 B.C.E. (before common era); high lake levels ca. 1500–1200 B.C.E.; and low lake levels between ca. 1000 and 700 B.C.E. The Biblical evidence indicates that during the dry periods the southern basin of the Dead Sea was completely dry, a fact that was not clear from the geological and archaeological data alone.

Keywords

Dead Sealake levelsradiocarbon datingarchaeologyBiblical chronologyclosed lakeJordan RiverSodomMount SedomHolocene environment
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , May 2012 , pp. 334 - 342
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aharoni, Y Mesad Gozal. Israel Exploration Journal 14, (1964). 112–113.Google Scholar
Aharoni, Y Rainey, A.F The Land of the Bible—A Historical Geography. (1979). Westminster Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Albright, W.F The Historical Background of Genesis XIV. Journal of the Society of Oriental Research 10, (1926). 231–269.Google Scholar
Albright, W.F The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible. (1935). Fleming Revell, New York.Google Scholar
Albright, W.F The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra. (1963). Harper, New York.Google Scholar
Arakawa, H Climatic change as revealed by the data from the Far East. Weather 12, (1957). 46–51.Google Scholar
Brown, F, Driver, S.R, and Briggs, C.A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. (1966). Clarendon, Oxford.Google Scholar
Bar-Adon, P Excavations in the Judean Desert. (1989). The Department of Antiquities and Museums, Jerusalem.Google Scholar
Clermont-Ganneau, C Oùétait l'embouchure du Jourdain à l'époque de Josué?. Recueil d'archéologie Orientale 5, (1902). 267–280.Google Scholar
Donahue, J Hydrologic and topographic change during and after Early Bronze occupation at Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira. Hadidi, A Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan. (1985). Department of Antiquities, Amman. 131–140.Google Scholar
Elitzur, Y Reality, archaeology and linguistic research (Hebrew). Leshonenu 51, (1987). 207–229.Google Scholar
Elitzur, Y Place names of two words in the Arabic nomenclature and in the Bible. Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies. (1990). Magnes, Jerusalem. p. 21–28.Google Scholar
Enzel, Y, Kadan, G, and Eyal, Y Holocene earthquakes inferred from a fan-delta sequence in the Dead Sea graben. Quaternary Research 53, (2000). 34–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frumkin, A Morphology and development of salt caves. Journal of Caves and Karst Studies (NSS Bulletin) 56, (1994). 82–95.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A Determining the exposure age of a karst landscape. Quaternary Research 46, (1996). 99–106.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A Uplift rate relative to base level of a salt diapir (Dead Sea, Israel), as indicated by cave levels. Alsop, I, Blundell, D, and Davison, I Salt Tectonics, Special Publication no. 100. (1996). Geological Society, London. 1–47.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A The Holocene history of the Dead Sea levels. Niemi, T.M, Ben-Avraham, Z, and Gat, Y The Dead Sea—The Lake and Its Setting. (1997). Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford. 237–248.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A Salt cave cross sections and their paleoenvironmental implications. Geomorphology 23, (1998). 183–191.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A, Magaritz, M, Carmi, I, and Zak, I The Holocene climatic record of the salt caves of Mount Sedom, Israel. The Holocene 1, (1991). 191–200.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A, Carmi, I, Zak, I, and Magaritz, M Middle Holocene environmental change determined from the salt caves of Mount Sedom, Israel. Bar-Yosef, O, and Kra, R Late Quaternary Chronology and Paleoclimates of the Eastern Mediterranean. (1994). Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson. 315–322.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A, and Ford, D.C Rapid entrenchment of stream profiles in the salt caves of Mount Sedom, Israel. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 20, (1995). 139–152.Google Scholar
Frumkin, A, and Raz, E Collapse and subsidence associated with salt karstification along the Dead Sea. Carbonates and Evaporites 16, (2001). 117–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glueck, N. (1934). Exploration in Eastern Palestine, I: Annual of the American Schools of the Oriental Research, XIV. 81–82.Google Scholar
Grintz, Y.M The Book of Genesis, Its Uniqueness and Antiquity. (1983). Magnes, Jerusalem.Google Scholar
Kadan, G Evidence of Dead-Sea Level Fluctuations and Neotectonic Events in the Holocene Fan-Delta of Nahal Darga. (1997). Ben Gurion University, Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Y The Biblical Account of the Conquest of Palestine. (1985). Magnes, Jerusalem.Google Scholar
Ken-Tor, Agnon A, Enzel, Y, Stein, M, Marco, S, and Negendank, J.F.W High-resolution geological record of historic earthquakes in the Dead Sea basin. Journal of Geophysical Research 106, (2001). 2221–2234.Google Scholar
Klein, C Morphological evidence of lake level changes, western shore of the Dead Sea. Israel Journal of Earth Sciences 31, (1982). 67–94.Google Scholar
Klein, C Fluctuations of the Level of the Dead Sea and Climatic Fluctuations in Israel During Historical Times. (1986). The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Google Scholar
Mulder, M. J. (1992). Sodom and Gomorrah.. In The Anchor Bible Dictionary Freedman, D. N., Ed., pp. 101b–103a., Doubleday, New York.Google Scholar
Neev, D The Dead Sea. (1964). Google Scholar
Simons, J. (1959). The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament. Brill, Leiden.Google Scholar
Skinner, J The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapters I–XXXIX. (1954). Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Smith, G.A The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. (1974). Ariel, Jerusalem.Google Scholar
Speiser, E.A Genesis—Introduction, Translation, and Notes . Freedman, D.N The Anchor Bible Dictionary. (1964). Doubleday, New York.Google Scholar
Street-Perrott, F.A, and Harrison, S.P Lake levels and climate reconstruction. Hecht, A.D Paleoclimate Analysis and Modeling. (1985). Wiley, New York. 291–340.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, P.J, Bard, E, Back, J.W, Burr, G.S, Hughen, K.A, Kromer, B.G.M, van der Plicht, J, and Spurk, M INTCAL98 radiocarbon age calibration, 24,000-0 cal BP. Radiocarbon 40, (1998). 1041–1083.Google Scholar
Vermes, G The Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran in Perspective. (1977). Collins, London.Google Scholar
Zhang, P, and Gong, G Some characteristics of climatic fluctuations in China since the 16th century. Acta Meteorologica Sinica 34, (1979). 238–247.Google Scholar