City of Salt

City of Salt (Hebrew Ir-hammelach) was one of six towns in the wilderness district of Judah's inheritance named in Joshua 15:62: "And Nibshan, and the City of Salt, and En-gedi; six cities with their villages." The town lay along the western shore of the Dead Sea in the desolate Judean wilderness frontier with the salt formations of the Dead Sea basin. The site is generally identified with Khirbet Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea — the site that would later become famous as the home of the Essene community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. Recent archaeology at Qumran has confirmed substantial Iron Age occupation matching the biblical Joshua-period reference.