Lake
Lacus Aspaltidis
Bahr Lut
Listen to the story
The Dead Sea keeps only the start of its name on the map, LAC and AS, and the LAC is extremely faint; in full it was Lacus Aspaltidis, the lake of asphalt. It yielded much asphalt, which the Nabataeans traded widely. Ancient writers found its water bitter and foul-smelling, deadly to fish and birds, although the sweet Jordan flows into it; the Hebrew Bible calls it the Salt Sea, and in Arabic it is the Sea of Lot. Pliny made it a hundred miles long; in reality it is about fifty-five.