Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

- Tonight, sacred sites lost to time from fabled cities.

- Starting in ancient times,

historians try to determine a real location

for Sodom and Gomorrah.

- Archeologists are excavating

just southeast of the Dead Sea

and while they're exploring the area,

they find something pretty amazing.

- To a famous tomb.

- This is one of the most important people

in all of religious history.

We know where his story starts,

and yet incredibly we don't know where it ends.

- Or a miraculous pool.

- People keep looking for it,

but it remains lost for centuries.

- A work crew is fixing a broken sewer pipe

when they uncover two ancient stone steps.

- The discovery makes alarm bells go off for these guys.

- Now, the stories behind these long lost places

and the attempts to find them.

[dramatic music]

Immortalized in Homer's "Iliad," Troy was once believed

to be purely mythological, a city of Gods and heroes.

But could there be more to the story?

- Everyone has heard of Troy.

It's been referenced in countless books, songs,

and of course Hollywood movies.

- The story of Troy has been hugely famous

for well over 2000 years thanks to the Greek writer Homer.

Around 750 BC, he writes two of the world's

most legendary works of literature,

"The Iliad ; And, The Odyssey."

- The "Iliad" recounts the story of the Trojan War,

this epic ancient battle that Homer says takes place

some 500 years before his time

between the Greeks and the Trojans.

- In Greek mythology, the walls of the city of Troy

were actually built by the Gods Poseidon and Apollo.

So, Troy is both an incredibly strong city,

but also an important religious site

with a direct connection to the Gods.

- [Dennis] Unfortunately, not even the Gods can protect Troy

from its eventual fate.

- Sometime between the 12th and 13th Century BC,

Helen, who's considered

the most beautiful woman in the world,

is married to Menelaus, the Greek King of Sparta.

Paris, a young prince from the City of Troy,

either seduces or kidnaps Helen,

and takes her back to his home.

Menelaus assembles as allies and they sail for Troy.

- There's a legendary saying

that Helen's face launched 1,000 ships.

There are reportedly 100,000 warriors on those ships,

all determined to vanquish their enemy

and retrieve their queen.

- [Dennis] For the next 10 years,

the Trojans managed to keep the Greek army out.

- Now, we get to the part of the story

that you definitely know, the Trojan Horse.

The Greeks build a giant hollow wooden horse

and secretly put a bunch of soldiers inside.

They leave it at the gates of Troy as a peace offering

while the rest of the Greek army pretends

to give up the fight and turn around to sail home.

- The people of Troy welcome this gift.

They pull the horse into the city

and close the gates behind it.

Now, that night, the Greek soldiers jump out of the horse,

open the gates from the inside,

and let in their entire army

that was actually hiding nearby.

- A battle ensues and the Greeks finally win.

Helen and Menelaus return to Greece

and live happily ever after, and Troy is totally destroyed.

That's basically the end of this magnificent city

that the Gods helped to build.

- [Dennis] It's an incredible story,

but could there be any truth to it?

- There is a region in Northwestern Turkey

called the Troad,

in Greek, this means the land of Troy,

and in this area there is a city called Ilion or Ilium

that we know was already in ruins at the time of Homer.

- Around 700 BC,

likely right after "The Iliad ; And, The Odyssey"

are written, the Greeks start colonizing

the abandoned area around Ilion.

They soon start referring to it as Troy.

It even turns into a travel destination.

Then sometime around 580, there's geological evidence of

a series of massive earthquakes that flatten the area,

and the site is lost to time.

- [Dennis] 1,300 years later,

an accidental discovery reignites

the search for this legendary lost city.

- In the 1860s,

an amateur English archeologist named Frank Calvert convince

his wealthy German businessman, Heinrich Schliemann

to come look at some historic artifacts

that were found on Calvert's Family Farm

near the town of Tevfikiye in Northwest Turkey.

Both men are well versed in Homer's "Iliad"

and despite their lack of formal archeological training,

they think these artifacts mean that the lost city of Troy

was actually there on Calvert's farm.

- [Dennis] Schliemann and Calvert spend

the next 20 years excavating the area themselves.

- Schliemann is basically digging massive trenches

into the site, destroying much of the archeological record,

but these questionable methods do yield

some significant finds.

- Apparently the city on this site had been destroyed

and rebuilt at least nine times,

starting in the Bronze Age

all the way through the Roman Era.

Schliemann assigns a number

to each of the different city levels

with IX being the newest and I the oldest.

- [Dennis] Then Schliemann takes

a closer look at each level.

- At a level he calls Troy II, Schliemann finds treasure.

There's silver, gold, and copper vessels

and some really unique jewelry.

- He immediately claims that this treasure belonged

to King Priam of Troy,

and that the jewels were worn by the woman

who started the whole conflict, Helen of Troy.

So, therefore he has found the Troy of Homer's epics,

but this treasure can't be accurately dated,

especially not in Schliemann's time,

although it does look very similar

to other Bronze Age artifacts.

- Not everyone believes Schliemann.

Some even go so far as to claim

that he faked the jewelry find,

but this is still definitely

an ancient city of great importance

and researchers continue to work on the site.

- Two archeologists Wilhelm Dorpfeld in the 1880s

and later Carl Blegen in the 1930s make finds that appear

to more firmly link the site with the legendary Troy,

and by this time some of the layers

can be dated more accurately.

- Troy II, where Schliemann claims he found the treasure

actually dates to an older time than King Priam.

It dates to around 2500 BC early Bronze age,

whereas King Priam ruled probably in the late Bronze age

about 1,000 years later.

- The archeologists instead begin to focus

on the areas of Troy VI and VII,

because these fit the timeline of the Ilion.

Sometime around this period,

the city was destroyed by a massive fire,

and they also find unburied skeletons possibly suggesting

there was a natural disaster

or it was attacked and destroyed by invaders.

- They also discover large underground storage spaces

inside the city walls suggesting a population dealing

with a long drawn out siege.

And according to Homer,

the Greek siege of Troy took nearly a decade.

- [Dennis] To date, archeologists

have conducted more than 20 digs at the site.

- Modern excavations have uncovered 23 sections of walls,

11 gates, a stone ramp,

and parts of the defense of bastions all over the place.

- There seems to be a consensus among scholars

that Schliemann site is at the very least

the location of the real Ilion.

- But there's still debate in academic circles

as to whether this may also be the City of Troy

that Homer writes about.

Some say yes while others propose different,

much bolder alternatives.

- [Dennis] Like author Iman Jacob Wilkens

who suggests a surprising possibility in 1990,

- Wilkens writes a book called "Where Troy Once Stood."

Now, in this book he proposes

that the real location of Troy is in England.

- Wilkens writes that the Trojan War was actually based

on a fight between Celtic people in 1200 BC

in an area that today is called Cambridgeshire,

which is about 70 miles north of London.

He claims that 14 rivers named in the "Iliad"

can actually be found in Cambridgeshire.

- [Dennis] After scouting the area,

Wilkens believes he's found the fabled city.

- Cambridgeshire is a really flat area,

but it's broken up by this very scenic topography

known as the Gog Magog Hills.

Wilkens boldly states that these hills

are where the lost City of Troy once stood.

- Wilkens cites an earlier archeological find

to back up his claim.

In 1959, two brothers find nearly 6,500 pieces of bronze

buried in a pit in Isleham,

which is on the outskirts of Cambridgeshire.

These are tools, weapons,

and vessels from the early Bronze Age

and there are a lot of them.

Wilkens speculates that these might be remnants

from the Treasury of Troy.

- [Dennis] Wilkens may be convinced,

but the debate continues today.

- The truth is that we can't be sure if the Trojan War

was real or just an epic legend

until of course somebody finds the remnants

of a giant wooden horse.

- Homer's epic poems have inspired endless searches

for the City of Troy,

but there's another text filled

with sacred lost places, the Bible.

One of the most famous involves Moses.

- Moses is a main character in the Bible's Book of Exodus

as well as the Jewish Torah and the Islamic Quran.

He's a servant of God and a prophet.

- One day Moses comes face-to-face with God

in the form of the burning bush.

God orders Moses to free the Hebrews from bondage

under the Egyptians.

- He obeys God and God even gives Moses the 10 commandments,

which is the law for the Israelites to live by.

- [Dennis] Despite his close relationship with God,

Moses doesn't get the happiest of endings.

- We all know that Moses leads the Israelites

around the desert for 40 years

in search of the promised land.

Well, not surprisingly,

they get thirsty and a little angry about it.

- As Moses miraculously brings water forth from a stone,

he gets upset with the Israelites

which God sees as an affront.

So, even after everything Moses has done,

God punishes him by denying him entry

into the promised land.

- God does allow Moses one small favor.

He permits Moses a glimpse of the promised land.

The 120-year-old Moses climbs

to the top of a mountain called Mount Nebo.

- He can see Bethlehem, he can see Jerusalem,

he can see the Dead Sea, he can see Jericho,

and that's when he dies seeing the promise,

but not touching the promise.

- The Bible says that God himself buries Moses

in the land of Moab, presumably somewhere around Mount Nebo,

and the verse continues, quote,

"And no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day."

- This is one of the most famous stories

and one of the most famous people

in all of religious history.

We know where his story starts, in Egypt,

and yet incredibly we don't know where it ends.

- [Dennis] But that hasn't stopped people from looking,

starting in the most obvious place.

- There is currently a mountain called Mount Nebo

in modern day Jordan.

Now, we don't know for sure

that this was the same Mount Nebo from Moses' Day,

but it does fit the Biblical description.

It has a panoramic view of Jericho,

Jerusalem and the rest of the promised land

in the Jordan River Valley.

- One of the first written accounts we get

is from a Christian pilgrim named Egeria

who visits the Holy Land in the 4th Century AD.

She tells a story of climbing Mount Nebo

and finding a group of monks living there.

- At the top of the mountain,

there's a small church with a shrine.

Inside by the pulpit of this church,

Egeria notices a slightly raised area.

The monks tell her that's where Moses

was laid out by the angels.

Basically, this is his tomb.

- The official story is that Moses's body

was placed here upon his death,

but then God himself moved the body

to an undisclosed location.

So, it's Moses' first resting place, not his final one.

- [Dennis] Christians continue to visit the site,

but their accounts of the tomb vary.

- We have lots of writings from people who came up here,

but if it's the same place, it seems to have been remodeled.

Pilgrims to the site are shown an actual crypt,

not just a raised spot on the floor,

and they're told this is the tomb of Moses

and yet it's still said to be empty.

- By the 6th Century,

there's now an even bigger church on Mount Nebo.

Accounts say that it was much more grand than just a shrine.

It has a basilica, a baptist tree,

and it's decorated with ornate Byzantine mosaics,

at the center remains the empty crypt

that said to belong to Moses.

- [Dennis] By 900 AD this church is abandoned

and falls into ruin.

It sits undisturbed for the next 1,000 years

until two Franciscan researchers explore the site

in the 1930s.

- And they find remains of the church buried

exactly where the ancient accounts indicated it would be.

The church is covered with mosaics

and it's laid out in a basilica pattern.

They come to believe that this is the original shrine

that the Christian pilgrim Egeria wrote about

in the 4th Century.

- But what they're most excited to find

is a series of tombs,

and there's one at the center of the nave

in the middle of the basilica that's empty.

It's obviously a special tomb for an important person

which lines up perfectly with these stories of Moses,

and so many start to call this the Tomb of Moses once again.

- Today a new church has been built on the site.

It was completed in 2016 and fully encloses

the original ancient church.

It's called the Memorial of Moses,

and it's important to note

that the site makes no public claims

to be the actual place Moses was buried,

but that hasn't stopped people from believing.

- [Dennis] Incredibly, there's another possible place

where Moses is buried.

- We need to remember that Moses

isn't only revered by Christians.

He's one of the main characters in the Jewish Torah

and is also featured prominently in the Islamic Quran.

- There are many Islamic texts known as Hadith,

which contains sayings from the Prophet Muhammad

including a notable lecture on Moses' death

and it's got a few differences from the Biblical account.

In the Hadith version,

Moses is out walking one day

when he comes across a man digging a grave,

the man goes to lie down in the hole

to make sure he's made it big enough.

Moses says, "Hey, let me lie down in there for you."

And when he does, God opens Moses' eyes

and shows him his place in paradise.

- The grave digger, it turns out,

is actually the Angel of Death

and this was all an elaborate plan

to get Moses to give up the ghost.

Once Moses sees paradise, he says, essentially,

"Take me away God," and God does,

and the Angel of Death then fills in the grave

burying Moses right on the spot.

- [Dennis] It's a place that still exists today.

- There's a mosque in the modern day West Bank

pretty close to Jericho called the Maqam an-Nabi Musa,

and this claims to be the actual site of Moses' burial.

- In the Quran, Moses is called Musa,

and Maqam an-Nabi Musa translates

to the shrine of the Prophet Moses.

It's a beautiful three-story building topped with domes.

- Just to the right of the main entrance,

there's a small chamber.

Inside is a tomb covered with a green cloth,

and if you talk to the faithful they'll tell you

that's where Moses is buried.

This shrine was completed in 1269,

and the tomb has been a pilgrimage destination

since the rule of Saladin,

an important Muslim hero who reigned in the 12th Century.

- But the Nabi Musa site has one similar problem

to the one on Mount Nebo, the lack of an actual body.

According to the Islamic tradition,

this location was chosen

because God showed it to Saladin in a dream,

but they weren't about to dig down and disturb Moses

if he was actually down there.

Instead, they built an empty tomb above the spot

and that's what remains on display today.

- [Dennis] According to both accounts,

there may be a reason

why we'll never find the body of Moses.

- The Christian Bible as well as Quran makes note

that God has purposely kept

where the body is buried a mystery to people,

and it's likely because people would idolize the sight.

They may idolize Moses more than God.

- Judging by the thousands of faithful who come every year

to Mount Nebo and Nabi Musa,

even if neither is precisely where Moses died,

people are satisfied with being close enough

to the beloved prophet.

- Although there are many mysteries surrounding

the story of Jesus,

where it begins isn't typically one of them,

but is it possible that place isn't actually Bethlehem?

- Every Christmas the faithful venerate

the birth of Jesus Christ.

Nativities decorate the fronts of churches and homes,

and at the center of this familiar joyful scene

is the baby Jesus lying in a manger

in the little town of Bethlehem.

- It's one of the first things

that they teach in Sunday school,

that's Mary Jesus's soon to be mother

is betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph,

but before the two of them can consummate their marriage,

Mary gets pregnant,

which is surprising because she's a virgin.

- An angel appears to marry and later Joseph in a dream

and tells them not to worry,

this child was conceived with the Spirit of God.

- [Dennis] Just before their child is born,

Mary and Joseph are forced to take a trip.

- According to the Biblical account,

the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus decrees

that a census be conducted of, quote,

"All the inhabited Earth."

- In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph and a very pregnant Mary

have to leave their home in Nazareth and go to Bethlehem.

This is where Joseph is originally from,

and the rules of the census are that you have to go back

to your hometown to register.

- When they arrive in Bethlehem,

there is no room in the inn,

and so Mary gives birth in a manger.

- The gospels don't agree on everything.

Part of the story, for example,

is that three wise men arrive to praise

and give gifts to the baby Jesus.

That's only in Matthew's account,

but they do both state that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

- Bethlehem still stands today.

It's about five miles from Jerusalem,

and within about 100 years of Jesus' death,

there is evidence that early Christians began praying

at a site that they believed to be the birthplace of Jesus.

- [Dennis] All that changes in the early 2nd Century

when Roman emperor Hadrian crushes

a Jewish revolt in 132 AD leaving Bethlehem in ruins.

- Supposedly Hadrian even builds a shrine

to the Roman God Adonis at the site where Jesus was born.

- [Dennis] The site is forgotten about for 200 years

until a famous ruler takes up a new religion

in the 4th Century.

- In the year 312, Roman emperor Constantine converts

to become the first Christian emperor,

and in 326 his mother Helena goes on a tour

of the Holy Land.

She's looking for Biblical sites and for relics and

of course she visits Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus.

- Helena wants her son to rebuild the city

and construct a church to commemorate Jesus' birth.

Locals show Helena

to a grotto beneath Hadrian's ruin Temple of Adonis

and they tell her this is where the nativity took place.

- The Church of the Nativity

still stands in this spot today,

right where Helena directed Constantine to build it,

and it's where a majority

of the faithful believe Jesus was born.

- [Dennis] But not everyone is convinced

that this is the actual site.

- The church is on a spot that Helena identifies

in erect city hundreds of years

after the birth of Christ.

- Two of the gospels don't even say Jesus

was born in Bethlehem.

They just say Jesus comes from Nazareth.

And so we have to ask, what if Helena got it wrong?

- [Dennis] This doubt inspires some

to consider other options,

among them an Israeli archeologist

with an interesting theory.

- Aviram Oshri agrees that Jesus was born in Bethlehem,

he just thinks that everyone has the wrong Bethlehem.

- In the early 1990s,

Oshri is investigating a small rural site

in a place called Bethlehem of Galilee.

This isn't the Bethlehem close to Jerusalem

where most people believe Christ was born.

This is a different, smaller, lesser known Bethlehem

that's farther north located about halfway

between Nazareth and Haifa.

It's only about five miles

from Joseph and Mary's home in Nazareth,

- And while Oshri is working in this other Bethlehem,

he hears locals talking about this being the real site

of Jesus' birth and he's intrigued with the idea

for a few reasons.

- He believes that the distances just don't add up

with the Church of the Nativity site.

That cradle that Helena found in the other Bethlehem

is around 90 miles away

from where Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth.

In that day and age, best estimates

it would've taken roughly a week to get there.

- Given the fact that Mary

was nine months pregnant at the time,

it seems unlikely to Oshri

that she would've undertaken such a long, difficult journey.

It makes much more sense that the trip was to a place

that's five miles away instead of 90 miles.

- [Dennis] To prove his point,

Oshri spends the next 11 years

excavating Bethlehem of Galilee

and what he finds is astonishing.

- Oshri discovers an entire

previously unknown Byzantine era church,

and under the apps of this church is a hidden cave.

So, it strikes him as possible

that this church was built specifically to contain the cave

and protect and commemorate it.

At the very least, he thinks he's found proof

that people were worshiping at this site

in the early days of Christianity.

- Oshri finds artifacts suggesting

that Bethlehem of Galilee

was an important Jewish City of craftspeople

at the time of Jesus' birth.

- Joseph and Jesus were craftspeople themselves.

There were carpenters in Nazareth,

which is right down the road,

so perhaps this entire region

was a hub for skilled builders.

- Oshri claims that the other more famous Bethlehem

has produced very few artifacts from Jesus' time period.

He believes that be Bethlehem

might not even have been inhabited when Jesus was born.

- Believers will continue to follow the tradition

and he's okay with that,

but it's not going to stop him from looking for the truth

wherever and whatever it may be.

[dramatic music]

- While the birthplace of Jesus continues

to inspire fresh debate,

another key location in his life

has also fascinated researchers for centuries.

This one is believed to be the site of a famous miracle.

- Jesus and his disciples are out one day in Jerusalem

and they come across a man who's been blind since birth.

The disciples ask Jesus, "What did this guy do

to deserve being blind?"

- Jesus replies, "The man did nothing wrong.

The blind man is here

so that we can all marvel at the power of God."

- Jesus then spits on the ground,

picks up some clay that he's made from the dirt and spit

and rubs it on the man's eyes.

He then tells the man to go wash it off.

- So, the man does what he's told

and incredibly when he washes his eyes out,

he can miraculously see.

- Now, at this point in Jesus' story,

he's already performed a few other miracles,

but the story of the blind man is particularly important

because unlike most of his miracles,

this one happens at a place with a specific name,

the Pool of Siloam.

- [Dennis] Unfortunately, the Pool of Siloam

is destroyed and lost to history

after Roman troops sack Jerusalem in 70 AD.

- For centuries, archeologists and experts have wondered

if the pool could be rediscovered,

and if it was rediscovered,

what might it tell us about this miracle?

- There are reasons beyond the story of the blind man

to believe that the pool was a real site.

It's mentioned in the Bible's second book of Kings

as a place that dates back to the time

of the Jewish king Hezekiah

in the 7th or 8th Century BC.

- Experts believe that Hezekiah built this system of tunnels

and the pool itself to provide fresh water for Jerusalem.

Basically it's part of the city's water system.

- [Dennis] A pool is also mentioned

by the Roman historian Josephus in the 1st Century AD,

although he doesn't give it a specific name.

- Josephus actually provides a clear description

of where the pool is located.

He places it at the end of the Tyropoeon Valley

just beyond the city walls

where the wall has an eastward bend in it.

- Problem is that during Josephus' time,

pretty much all the places he writes about in Jerusalem

are destroyed, including the Pool of Siloam.

- It's the site of an important miracle,

so people keep looking for it,

but it remains lost for centuries.

- [Dennis] Then in 1880 there's a surprising breakthrough.

- According to the story,

two boys are playing at an abandoned ancient water tunnel

on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem.

One of the kids slips and falls in,

and when he is pulling himself out,

he notices the writing on the wall literally.

- It details how the tunnel was built,

but more importantly it's written

in the ancient Hebrew style of script

that was used around the time of King Hezekiah.

This could mean they found the waterway

that the Bible says Hezekiah built

to supply the Pool of Siloam.

- Then in the 1890s,

two other archeologists are working close

to where the water tunnel was found.

They uncover an ancient square pool surrounded

by an arched Colonnade.

- This site is dated to somewhere in the Roman period,

so it's not anywhere near as old as the tunnel.

- This would not have been the actual pool

where Jesus performed his miracle.

It's not old enough,

but maybe it's the unnamed pool referenced by Josephus.

- [Dennis] Investigation at the site stalls

for the next 100 years until a routine repair in 2004.

- In one of these great stories

of accidental archeological finds,

a work crew is fixing a broken sewer pipe

near the water tunnel and the Roman Pool,

when they uncover two ancient stone steps.

- The Israel Antiquities Authority

is immediately called to the site.

Archeologists uncover three groups of five steps

each separated by narrow landings.

These steps surround a huge pool, some 225 feet long.

- One of the archeologists, Eli Shukron, is quoted as saying

that they are 100% sure that it's the Pool of Siloam.

It predates the Roman Pool

and it's fed by King Hezekiah's tunnel.

And so this would've been the exact Pool of Siloam

as it existed in the time of Jesus.

The sight of a potential miracle has been found.

- It appears as though the Roman Pool

was added later above the original Pool of Siloam.

Today, this site is not completely excavated,

but in 2022, the Israel Antiquities Authority announces

that they will be restoring the entire site.

- Whether experts can unearth any more

about the famous miracle that the New Testament says

took place here remains to be seen,

but for now, archeologists are thrilled

to have found this important lost sight.

[dramatic music]

- Not every lost sacred site

is the result of mankind's destruction.

Sometimes God himself wipes

a location off the map.

- The God depicted in the Old Testament

is not the kind of God you want to test.

If you make him angry, his justice is swift,

his authority is absolute, and his wrath is destructive.

That's precisely what happens to the people

of the lost cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

- The very names of the two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah,

have literally come to mean sin and evil.

They're still a part of our modern language today,

despite the fact that the Bible says

that they ceased to exist several thousand years ago.

- The story starts in Genesis 18

with a very famous Biblical patriarch named Abraham.

Those that consider him to be a real person

tend to date his life

to sometime between 2000 and 1500 BC.

- God flanked by two angels in human form

appears to Abraham.

God tells him,

"I've heard that there are these two cities

right next to each other, Sodom and Gomorrah.

The people there are supposedly committing

some really grave sins and I need to find out

if this is true."

- In the next chapter, the two angels visit Sodom

to see what's really going on.

They meet a local resident named Lot

who happens to be Abraham's nephew.

Lot invites the angels to his house

and he insists that they stay for the night.

- According to the story that evening,

a mob of men from the city surround Lot's house

and demand that he sends out the angels

because they plan to do unspeakable

and awful things to them.

- Lot tries to talk the mob out of attacking the angels.

He even offers them his two virgin daughters in their place,

but the townspeople won't listen

and they try to break down the door.

So, the angels then strike the mob with blindness

to keep them at bay.

- The angels urge Lot to gather his family,

leave the city, run for the hills and don't look back,

because now that God has proof

of how sinful these people are,

he's going to destroy both Sodom and Gomorrah.

They don't specifically visit Gomorrah in the Bible,

just Sodom, but apparently the wickedness applies

to both places.

- Lot tells the angels

that there is a small town nearby called Zoar,

and that he can get to it pretty quickly.

He asks the angels, if he goes there,

will they spare him and that town?

The angels say yes.

- [Dennis] Once lot makes it safely to Zoar,

God sticks to his word.

- As retribution for their wicked ways,

the Bible says God doesn't just burn down the two cities,

He actually destroys, quote, "All the plain,

all the inhabitants of the cities

and what grew on the ground."

We're talking about these two cities

being leveled completely into nothing, but dead dry earth.

Biblical equivalent of an atomic bomb.

- It's a very powerful lesson about the might of God

and the terrible consequences of behaving badly.

- [Dennis] But is this just a cautionary tale,

or were Sodom and Gomorrah actual places?

- Ancient Greek philosopher Strabo states

that there are locals living near the Dead Sea

who claim Sodom used to be nearby.

He writes this account around the same time

as the birth of Christ.

- The Bible implies that God's punishment

might have hit more than just the two most famous cities.

It says that Sodom and Gomorrah

are part of what's referred to as, quote,

"Five Cities of the Plain."

- In Deuteronomy 29:15,

we get a little more information,

basically in a warning about what happens if you upset God.

There's a passage that says, it'll be like the destruction

of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim.

- So, there is a suggestion that at least two more cities

were destroyed alongside Sodom and Gomorrah.

That would be four of the five

so-called "Cities of the Plain," the fifth being Zoar,

which we know was spared

because Lot and his family escaped there,

and we also know that Zoar was close to Sodom

because Lot was able to get there quickly.

- So, if some were looking for whatever is left

of Sodom and Gomorrah,

the best place to look would be the city

that didn't get destroyed, Zoar.

- Because it survives destruction,

there are later references to Zoar in the Old Testament.

Isaiah 15:5 places it in Moab,

which today is an area just east of the Dead Sea in Jordan.

- This lines up with Strabo.

So, it's not surprising

that when archeologists start properly investigating

the possibility of the Sodom and Gomorrah are real,

the area around the Dead Sea

is one of the first places that they look.

- According to the Old Testament,

God lays waste to the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah

in a moment of Biblical rage.

It's an infamous story,

but did the two cities ever exist?

[dramatic music]

- Scholars have taken opposing views

towards Sodom and Gomorrah.

On the one hand, some think it's just a made up story,

kind of like a Biblical scared strait

to keep you from living a life of sin

lest you be destroyed by God.

But others believe it could have a historical basis.

- Think of the original writings of the Book of Genesis.

Most of it was written by Jewish authors

for Jewish people who lived in the region

around the Dead Sea, that would be the intended audience.

What would be the point of coming up with a story

that happened here with completely made up places?

So, it's much more likely that the authors were inspired

by actual locations that readers would've heard of.

- [Dennis] For centuries, researchers searched

for the sites, but find nothing.

Then in 1973,

an American team discovers something incredible.

- Archeologists Walter Rast and Thomas Schaub

are excavating just southeast of the Dead Sea

at an early Bronze Age settlement called Bab edh-Dhra.

And while they're exploring the area,

they find something pretty amazing.

They uncover four additional cities or large settlements,

so there are a total of five cities here on this plain.

They didn't set out to look for Sodom and Gomorrah,

but when they see something that fits the story,

they pay attention.

- Here we have the combination of one,

the Bronze Age timeframe, two, the location being close

to where the Bible places Sodom and Gomorrah,

and now three,

the fact that there are five cities pretty close together.

The discovery makes alarm bells go off for these guys

- [Dennis] As they investigate further, more clues line up.

- As it turns out, the Bab edh-Dhra site

and another settlement close by called Numeira

both came to catastrophic ends.

- In Bab edh-Dhra, there is evidence

that a massive fire ravaged much of the city,

and there are also large piles of bricks everywhere,

possibly suggesting that the city crumbled to the ground.

- In Numeira the second city,

archeologists find similar destruction,

and they also find skeletons in some of the ash and ruins

that have been buried when the city crumbled around them.

It sounds a lot like serious Biblical destruction.

- The team's research convinces many

that this could be the former Sodom and Gomorrah,

or at least an inspiration for the story

that was eventually written about them.

- [Dennis] As for the source of their destruction,

that remains unknown.

- Obviously, the faithful beliefs

that these two cities were taken down

by the awesome power of God.

The scientific community, however,

points more towards geology.

- In 2020, Professor Shmuel Marco from Tel Aviv University

publishes a research paper.

He says that roughly every 1,300 to 1,400 years,

the Dead Sea area has an earthquake registering 7.5

on the Richter scale or higher.

So, maybe this awesome act of God

was really a massive earthquake.

[dramatic music]

- Some archeologists point to the fact

that the Bible mentions that there are tar pits in the area,

so maybe an earthquake combined with a tar pit explosion

could account for the Biblical tale

of how fire rained down on the city.

- Can we definitively say

that this location is the lost site of Sodom and Gomorrah,

and that it most certainly was destroyed

by a natural disaster?

We may never know for sure,

but more often than not,

our most iconic stories from religion or mythology

have at their heart a kernel of truth.

This site makes a pretty compelling case

for inspiring the legend.

- Though many of these sacred places remain lost to time,

the search for them is far from over.

I'm Dennis Quaid, thanks for watching, "Holy Marvels."