Sodom, Sodoma

SODOM, SODOMA (sŏd'ŭm, sŏ-dō'ma, Heb. sedhōm, Gr. Sodoma). One of the so-called “Cities of the Plain,” along with Admah, Gomorrah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. The site of “the Plain” has been variously conjectured. Sir George Adam Smith pointed out that “no authentic trace” remains, but recently the suggestion has been revived that “the Plain” is the shallow southern end of the Dead Sea, and that the waters cover the remains. Underwater archaeology may or may not confirm this assertion, which appears first to have been made by Thomson in his nineteenth-century classic, The Land and the Book.