Land of Salt

The Peripatetic Historian travels south along Israel’s Dead Sea

The Dead Sea. All photographs by the author.

But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. — Genesis 19:26

Jordan’s Rift Valley is deep gash, carved in the earth, a rip produced when two geologic plates — the Arabian and African — pulled apart. Dividing the high, cool mountains of Israel and the West Bank from the arid slopes of Jordan…