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Amos Frumkin

THE WOMAN ON THE HILL. Because Lot’s Wife is perched on the slope of an ever-rising mountain of salt, the pillar is also rising relative to ground level as the base of the mountain recedes. Frumkin found that Lot’s Wife rises approximately 0.3 inches per year, meaning that when the monument first appeared 4,000 years ago, it would have been 100 feet lower down the slope than it is now. Back then, the stone would have been more directly visible to passing travelers and its odd, human-like form no doubt stirred the ancient imagination.