History of The Dead Sea and 9 Unique Facts Behind It

As a planet which has larger water zone than the mainland, earth is well known as blue planet. We should know that water on the earth has many types, such as ocean, lake, river, swamp, sea and many more. Each type of water has different characteristics in each area. It depends on the geography and astronomy of that territory.

One of the most well known water zone in the world because of it’s uniqueness is The Dead Sea. Most of us may have been familiar with this sea. The Dead Sea is one of nature phenomenon that can be found nowhere in the world. Actually, The Dead Sea is a lake which is surrounded by Palestine, Jordan, and Israel. This lake is one of the lowest land in the world with 417,5 height or 1.300 feet below the sea level and this is the lowest point on the earth.

The Dead Sea gets the water sources from Jordan river with 41.650 km2 width water collection space with maximum 67 km long and maximum 18 km wide. The water volume in The Dead Sea is approximately 147 km3.

History of The Dead Sea

Based on the research, The Dead Sea was geologically formed since 3 million years ago when a small crack happen in Jordan Riff Valley. On the same time, water from the sea flowed into the crack and finally formed a lake. The dry climate condition and high evaporation made the mineral in the water changed. And the salt, gypsum, and calcium around the crack formed a lake with high concentrate salt.

Name of The Dead Sea was given, not without any reasons. It contains very high salt so that no living creatures found in the water. That’s the reason why this lake is called as The Dead Sea. The salt in The Dead Sea reaches 33.7%, while average salt content in whole sea in the world is 3.5%. You can imagine the taste of The Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea can’t be separated from history of the world religion such as Christian and Islam. It is written a lot in the Old Testament but in Hibrani language only which is “Yam ha-Melah” that means Salted Sea. In a prose, The Dead Sea is called as “Yam ha-Mavet” which means The Sea of Death due to no creature can live in it. Beside that, there are still a lot of names for The Dead Sea such as Asphaltite (Greek), East Sea, Zoar Sea, and Arabian Sea.

Unique Facts of The Dead Sea

It doesn’t just present the nice view, but The Dead Sea has some unique facts as well, those are:

The Dead Sea is known as sea better than The Dead Lake. For the size of lake, The Dead Sea is too wide and more likely as a sea. While the surface of The Dead is 810 km square wide.
The material content like mud that is found in The Dead Sea is proven to beautify the skin. Not only for beauty, the calcium mineral is also used for health such as improve the skin texture and accelerate the blood circulation. Since many years ago, Cleopatra, King Salomo, and The Great Herodes have visited The Dead Sea to get the benefit of the mud. So, no wonder if every year The Dead Sea is visited by tourists to get the benefit of it. Nowadays, a lot of companies start processing the mud from The Dead Seas commercial ingredients especially in beauty sector like mud masker and salt masker.
Water in Th Dead Sea came from Jordan River. The wonder of The Dead Sea is that there is no outlet from this lake to the sea. So that the flow of Jordan River is gathered on the crack.
We can float on the The Dead Sea even we do not swim at all. This is because the salt concentrate in The Dead Sea is very high. So that The Dead Sea is like condensed compared with sea water commonly. As of the law of Archimedes, the density of The Dead Sea reaches 1.24 gr/cm3, while the density of human body is 0.985 gr/cm3. It means that the smaller density of something than the water density, it will float on the water. Although we can float, it doesn’t mean that we cannot sink down. And the life guard suggest us to keep wearing safety jacket for safety reason.
The air around The Dead Sea is the fresh one. There is no pollution, animals, or plants that cause allergy. So that it is very good even for asthma patient.
Salt from The Dead Sea have been used for mummification or making mummy especially for pickling the dead body.
The first health resort nearby The Dead Sea which was built for King Herod The Great.
Journal Environmal Economics in 2010 explained that The Dead Sea start shrinking and the process reaches 1 meter every year. Beside shrinking, the other problem of The Dead Sea is drought. This is because the process of evaporation is too high around The Dead Sea. The government of Palestine, Syiria, Jordan, and Israel use the water source which is from Jordan River for farming and other need. It is important to know that Jordan River is the only river which flow to The Dead Sea. So, it is not impossible if one day The Dead Sea will shrink and leave only salt and mineral.
The position of The Dead Sea is on the lowest point of the earth. So that, the ultraviolet which shine this area is quite low. So that it’s difficult to burn the human skin.