Earlier this year while I was in Israel we visited the Dead Sea. You can read about all the places we visited that day in my post Well Below Sea Level.

This morning I received an email with the Weekend Roundup from BiblePlaces Blog. In the e-mail there was a link to an article by Wayne Stiles: The Dead Sea Will Live Again

The article is very interesting and gives a good history of the Dead Sea area and the significance that it has in the region.

What I really liked about the article was that it had a link to an interactive map that showed changes in the Dead Sea over time. If you like maps as much as me, you will want to click on this link: Interactive Dead Sea Map *Update: The link to the interactive map is no longer active.

One of the interesting things that was pointed out in the article was the massive amounts of water that are lost from the Dead Sea each day because of evaporation. Because of this the sky is usually very hazy. Especially later in the day.Here is a picture that I took during the afternoon while we were touring the excavations at Qumran. Here we can see the far side of the sea, but we were told that it was an unusually clear day.

Make sure that you check out the map. It is amazing to see the change in the sea level over time.

Steven