LONDON, MAR 26 (ZENIT).- After leading the first expedition to explore the bottom of the Dead Sea, Michael Sanders is convinced that he has discovered the lost cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed by God for their wickendess according to the Bible. The Biblical scholar led an international team of researchers; they discovered what appear to be the salt-encrusted remains of ancient settlements while studying the seabed from a mini-submarine, according to the "Daily Telegraph."

    Sanders, a Briton living in the United States, is planning a follow-up expedition to cut through the salt to be able to study the ruins. He says that he is "immensely excited." "The evidence cannot be ignored. I predicted there must be something extraordinary there and, lo and behold, there was. What we found matches exactly what the remains of an ancient city might look like."

    While some archeologists dismiss the Biblical story as a metaphor, many others have theorized that the cities actually existed in the Dead Sea region. Sanders, along with other experts, is convinced that the cities were destroyed by an earthquake that threw up flaming pitch, about 5,000 years ago. Adding to the evidence are the mass graves discovered on a peninsula in the Dead Sea in the 1960s, and the sulphur (brimstone) deposits in the nearby mountains. ZE00032620