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The Dead Sea
lthough called the "Dead Sea ", this sea and the whole region on its shore is very much alive. The dead Sea lies some 400 m below sea level at the lowest point on the earth's surface, and is a part of the Syrian - East Africa Rift Valley, flanked by the Judean Mountains to the west and the Moab mountains to the east.
The Dead Sea is one of the most saline lakes in the world. It is fed mainly by River Jordan in the north and by perennial springs and streams from the east and west. Having no outlet, the Dead Sea is a "terminal lake" which loses huge amounts of water by evaporation into the hot dry air. This results in high concentrations of salts and minerals in a unique composition that is particularly rich in chloride salts of magnesium, sodium, potassium, calcium, bromine and various others. The Dead Sea brine's chemical composition reflects erosion, as well as the recycling of older deposits.
Leaching of minerals from the geological strata also contributes to the Dead Sea brine and to a number of thermomineral springs along its shores. In addition, alluvial deposits form the much valued Dead Sea mineral mud, also known as Dead Sea therapeutic black mud.
The uniqueness of the Dead Sea minerals has been known for centuries. This is the only place in the world with this particular combination of exclusive spa benefits: peculiar sun radiation and climatic conditions, enriched oxygen atmosphere, mineral-rich salt sea, thermomineral springs, and mineral-rich mud.
In days of old, Dead Sea water and salt were imported to Italy by Roman nobles. Judean asphalt, the bituminous substance rising to the surface of the lake, was used for many industrial and medicinal purposes. Plants growing in lakeside oases, especially the balsam tree, produced valuable and highly sought-after cosmetics, perfumes and medicinal substances. Their value were of such great economic importance that wars were fought for their possession, as when Mark Anthony conquered the Dead Sea area for Cleopatra.
Today, the Dead Sea Works is a major industrial complex which for many decades has extracted potash, bromine and other chemicals for worldwide exports.
The Dead Sea region is also an ideal base for touring Israel. Travel distances are short, with Jerusalem only an hour's drive, and Tel-Aviv (30 minute flight time).
The Dead Sea region offers fascinating biblical, archeological and historical sites: such as the mountain fortress of Masada; Qumran, where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were found in ancient pottery jars: Ein Gedi, where David found refuge from King Saul: and the first
monasteries of the Christian monks in the Judean Desert.
Natural sites include the caves and eases of Ein Gedi; the canyons of the Judean Desert; Mount Sdom, an 11 mile long mountain range made of pure salt; and the spectacular Flour Cave, so-called due to its powder-like interior. For the adventurous there is rappelling, rock
climbing, and rental of All Terrain Vehicles for exploring otherwise inaccessible desert areas.
In recent years, the Dead Sea area haws become a health, rehabilitation, recreation and beauty spa. The combination of the year-round favorable climate, the thriving health and beauty centers, and the unique natural and historical tourist attractions, attract both vacationers and health-cure visitors from around the world. Modern facilities and hotels line the shore.
As a health spa, the Dead Sea offers patients an opportunity to treat various ailments while enjoying the feeling of well-being that is an important part of the treatment. Many visitors return year after year for long-term relief.
History of the Dead Sea
Until the winter of 1978-1979, the Dead Sea was composed of two stratified layers of water that differed in temperature, density, age, and salinity.
The topmost 35 meters or so of the Dead Sea had a salinity that ranged between 300 and 400 parts per thousand and a temperature that swung between 19 °C (66 °F) and 37 °C (98 °F).
Underneath a zone of transition, the lowest level of the Dead Sea had waters of a consistent 22 °C (72 °F) temperature and complete saturation of sodium chloride (NaCl).
Since the water near the bottom is saturated, the salt precipitates out of solution onto the sea floor.
Beginning in the 1960s water inflow to the Dead Sea from the Jordan River was reduced as a result of large-scale irrigation and generally low rainfall.
By 1975 the upper water layer of the Dead Sea was actually saltier than the lower layer.
The upper layer nevertheless remained suspended above the lower layer because its waters were warmer and thus less dense.
When the upper layer finally cooled down so that its density was greater than the lower layer the waters of the Dead Sea mixed.
For the first time in centuries the lake was a homogeneous body of water. Since then stratification has begun to redevelop.
Around three million years ago what is now the valley of the Jordan River, Dead Sea, and Wadi Arabah was repeatedly inundated by waters from the Mediterranean Sea.
The waters formed in a narrow, crooked bay which was connected to the sea through what is now the Jezreel Valley.
The floods of the valley came and went depending on long scale climatic change.
The lake that occupied the Dead Sea Rift, named "Lake Sodom", deposited beds of salt, eventually coming to be 3 km (2 miles) thick.
According to geological theory, approximately two million years ago the land between the Rift Valley and the Mediterranean Sea rose to such an extent that the ocean could no longer flood the area.
Thus, the long bay became a long lake.
The first such prehistoric lake is named "Lake Gomorrah".
Lake Gomorrah was a freshwater or brackish lake that extended at least 80 km (50 miles) south of the current southern end of the Dead Sea and 100 km (60 mi) north, well above the present Hula Depression.
As the climate turned more arid, Lake Gomorrah shrank and became saltier. The large, saltwater predecessor of the Dead Sea is called "Lake Lisan."
In prehistoric times great amounts of sediment collected on the floor of Lake Gomorrah.
The sediment was heavier than the salt deposits and squeezed the salt deposits upwards into what are now the Lisan Peninsula and Mount Sedom (on the southwest side of the lake).
"Geologists explain the effect in terms of a bucket of mud into which a large flat stone is placed, forcing the mud to creep up the sides of the pail".
When the floor of the Dead Sea dropped further due to tectonic forces the salt mounts of Lisan and Mount Sedom stayed in place as high cliffs.
Cleopatra was a Queen of ancient Egypt and is legendary as the most beautiful woman in the world at that time. She was famous for her youthful skin and looks which stayed radiant and healthy even as her age progressed. So what did the most powerful and beautiful woman in the world at the time think about cosmetics from The Dead Sea? In fact, Cleopatra thought so highly of skin care products from the sea, that she went to great expense to have cosmetic factories built on the shores of the sea. Their remains can still be seen today at Ein Bokek and Ein Gedi. Even though the skin care and spa brand we carry is SeaOra, we believe that Cleopatra was no fool when it came to beauty, youthful looks and healthy skin,
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Dead Sea Mud
Cleopatra obtained exclusive rights over the area and had pharmaceutical and cosmetic factories built there, the remains of which can still be seen today. The ancient Romans called the sea Lacus Asphaltites and rich citizens had containers of its water brought back to Rome.
Israelis call it Yam Hamelach - the Salt Sea. Today a large number of medical and other tourists are drawn to the special climatic, geographic, historical and balneological attractions of this region.
The Dead Sea, in fact, is dead - it harbors no living flora or fauna. But for thousands of people from all over the world who come to get a cure at one of its spas, this body of water spells health and quality of life.
Helen is a 23-year-old native of a town in Germany's Black Forest. "I have been coming to the Dead Sea for the past 10 years," she explains. "You see, I suffer from atopic dermatitis," she says,
pointing to red blotches on her neck and swollen parts of her face, manifestations of this ailment. "Coming here helps me - all this disappears for a few months. But then, later, at home, it all comes back again. So this time, I decided to spend a year here."
Many of the hotel guests - suffering from a skin disease, an arthritic ailment or breathing difficulties - follow the same sunning and bathing regime. The results for Dead Sea treatment of psoriasis are consistently good, explains Prof.
Zvi Even-Paz of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Hospital's Dermatology Department, who immigrated from England fifty years ago.
Today a consultant to the Dead Sea Medical Research Center, Prof. Even-Paz recalls the beginning of Dead Sea health treatments, when it took seven hours to travel to the area from Jerusalem; today it is a half hour's drive. "In those days the place looked like a moonscape - no plants grew here and there were no electricity or telephone lines.
We decided to conduct a study on 100 patients involving only the use of thermal springs. And even in those early pilot experiments, psoriasis treatment turned out to be very successful."
The Dead Sea is a terminal lake some 80 kms long, 17 kms wide, and 330 meters deep at its deepest point. it is fed by waters from the Jordan River to the north, from a few perennial springs and from flash floods. The Dead Sea contains a high concentration of salts and minerals -
calcium, potassium, magnesium and bromine - more than in any other body of water on the face of the earth - in fact, seven or eight times more than in the oceans. The area boasts dry, virtually non-polluted air, warm temperatures and minimal rainfall all year round.
The healing formula is a combination of natural elements: sea, sun, air and mud. The Dead Sea waters, the sunlight with its ultraviolet radiation weakened by filtering through the air to a region 400 meters below sea level, therapeutic mineral mud, high barometric pressure with consequently higher oxygen content,
and sulfur pools - all this is highly beneficial to people suffering from a variety of skin, rheumatic, arthritic and pulmonary diseases. And the combination is unique - it exists solely at this spot on the globe. Moreover, Prof. Even-Paz says, the Dead Sea climatotherapy has almost no damaging side effects.
A number of studies into the health benefits of the Dead Sea - a cost-effectiveness survey in England, and a follow- up remission study in Germany of psoriasis patients have been or are being carried out. Still, Prof. Even-Paz stresses the need for even more studies and analyses, and Dr. Abels, who has been working at the Dead Sea for the last 10 years,
agrees that more research is needed. "This alternative treatment is based on sound scientific principles," he stresses, "but we would like to see some more information, including more follow-up data." He says some 30,000 men, women and children spend 3-4 weeks each year at one of the many luxury hotels in the area undergoing treatments at one of the six clinics in the area.
Psoriasis sufferers account for some two thirds of the patients. Some 60% of the patients each year are new, while 40% are repeat visitors.
Dr. Harari, head of one of the six clinics, stresses the cost effectiveness of a Dead Sea psoriasis treatment. For a European patient the cost of a four-week stay - flight, hotel, cure - is about $3000. For citizens of at least three countries - Germany, Denmark and Austria - the treatments are paid for or subsidized by their governments.
Of the various dermatological treatments available, the Dead Sea treatment results in the longest remission time - 5-8 months - and recurrence is more likely to be in milder form. He adds that many of the 1.5 million psoriasis sufferers in Great Britain and the 6-8 million in the United States are not aware of the advantages of Dead Sea therapy.
Rheumatic ailments have been found to be greatly relieved by the use of the Dead Sea mud. The mineral-rich mud, actually an alluvial sediment containing organic remains of algae mixed with Dead Sea salts and minerals, is used in packs. It can also be smeared directly onto the face and body - stimulating, cleansing and invigorating the skin.
This black mud has also been found to have cosmetic value. Following in the footsteps of Cleopatra, today more than 50 modern cosmetic plants manufacture cosmetics and skin-care products, such as moisturizers, nourishing cream, shampoos, foot and hand creams, sun protection creams and soaps - all based on minerals from the Dead Sea.
The natural oxygen enrichment of the air in the Dead Sea area aids the breathing of patients with respiratory problems. Some of the diseases that may be alleviated by treatment at the Dead Sea are chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, asthma and pulmonary hypertension.
Patients at the Dead Sea also find themselves in an environment which promotes relaxation and reduces the stress often related to the onset or aggravation of disease. Patients find themselves in the encouraging company of a large number of "fellow sufferers," which alleviates social strain. Altogether, the visitor feels that he is detached from the humdrum of everyday life and enjoys a pleasant - not only healthful experience in unique surroundings.
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