[5] Unlike the neighboring ruins of Numeira, Bab edh-Dhra does not appear to have been destroyed by a significant fire.

[8][11] Other possible reasons this site may not be the biblical Sodom are because the village was too small (10 acres), not in the designated geographical area (Genesis 13:10–12) and did not exist in the appropriate time period.

However, archaeologists who worked at the site found no evidence of a conflagration, or indeed, any sort of catastrophe to explain the sudden desertion of its inhabitants.

Two large cemeteries known as Khirbet Qazone (or Qayzune) are located across the modern road (highway 50) from the occupational ruins of Bab edh-Dhra and date to the earliest part of the Early Bronze Age (EBA, ca.

All the human remains identified at Bâb edh-Dhrâʿ, have been confined to the cemetery (charnel house tombs) and are not found in the destruction layer of the city.

[18] Around 2900 BCE the residents of Bab edh-Dhra abandoned the subterranean shaft tombs for above-ground rectangular charnel houses in the cemetery.

[22][20][14] The tomb was a shallow pit where the body is laid with pottery and a dagger with a round heap of stones piled on top (thus called Tumulus).