Vale of Siddim or Valley of Siddim ("Salt Sea",[1] "sea of the Arabah",[2] "east sea",[3] Arabic: Bahr Lut (the Sea of Lut), "Lake Asphaltitus",[4] "Dead Sea"[5]) is a Hebrew bible place name mentioned in the book of Genesis Chapter 14.[6]
In the early 2nd millennium BCE, during the days of Lot, the Vale of Siddim was a river valley where a great battle occurred between four Mesopotamian armies and five cities of the Jordan plain.
Siddim is thought to be located on the southern end of the Dead Sea where modern bitumen deposits have been found in respect to the tar pits (asphalt, slime pits) mentioned in Genesis 14:10. This scripture indicates that the valley was filled with many of these pits that the armies of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into during their retreat from Mesopotamian forces. It has been suggested by theologians that the destruction of the cities of the Jordan Plain by divine fire and brimstone may have caused Siddim to become a salt sea, what is now the Dead Sea.[5] It is also theorized that tectonic shifting along the Jordan-Gihon rift may have caused this valley's further submersion under the Dead Sea, and that the "divine fire and brimstone" was an explosion of natural gas released by a ground movement.