Case file · Folklore / legend
Lot's wife at Mount Sodom
Genesis says Lot's wife looked back at burning Sodom and became a pillar of salt; Josephus wrote about 94 AD that he had seen the pillar himself.
94 CE · 31.07, 35.39 · status: legend
The account
Pillars on the salt diapir of Mount Sodom, by the Dead Sea, have been pointed out as 'Lot's wife' for centuries, and the one shown today is a natural salt column.
The sceptical view
Salt pillars form and collapse naturally as rain dissolves the rock; the one Josephus saw cannot be the one shown now.