Sodom appears to have been the center of an ancient cult that venerated the dead.

Dr. Steven Collins, author of Discovering the City of Sodom, explains that there were an estimated 1,500 dolmens, megalithic monuments to the dead, at the base of Tall el-Hammam, the site of Sodom. This is the tightest cluster of dolmens in the Levant, which is home to the densest concentration of dolmens on Earth.

He also shared that his team was the first to excavate dolmens that had escaped “night diggers,” the archaeologists’ term for tomb raiders and treasure hunters who follow professional digs to hunt for artifacts to sell on the black market. According to Dr. Collins, one of the dolmens they excavated appears to have been in uninterrupted use for the cult of the dead from about 4000 BC down to the time of Sodom’s destruction in the Middle Bronze Age, a period of about 2,300 years!