According to Genesis Chapter 19, when God decided to overturn and destroy the five cities of the plain, he sent angels to rescue Lot and his family. This being done they set off across the desert, a great conflagration behind them. Mrs Lot however looked back, something she really ought not to have done having been warned not to by the aforementioned angels. The poor soul was turned into a pillar of salt, an overreaction on the part of the supreme being you might think, and one that we are sure distressed Mr Lot and his girls. After all there is only so much seasoning one may require in a lifetime, and sprinkling one’s wife on the chips may not be the best way to keep her fresh in one’s memory.
Precisely where this occurred is unknown and has been the subject of much debate amongst Biblical scholars, but this has not discouraged a lucrative trade in Biblical artefacts of a somewhat questionable provenance. This is one such, and was sold to the unwary by a company that specialised in producing a variety of such items including, we are led to believe, bits of the ‘true cross’, and segments of Abraham’s stones.
A rough translation of the Arabic script on the reverse of the label, which was obviously added unnoticed by one who actually packed these bottles for sale reads as follows:
‘Another lump of salt from my cousin Abdullah. May the infidel never find out it comes from his goat pen.’
However we feel that such a curiosity might well find a home in the library or study of one who has an interest in such things, and we therefore offer it to you. The bottle is 100mm high.
Non semper ea sunt quae videntur