Dead Sea sparrow underparts are grey-white. The female is like a small house sparrow, with a streaked brown back, greyish head and buff-white underparts. She is paler and smaller billed than the house sparrow, and sometimes shows yellow on the neck sides. The eastern race "P. m. yatii" is sandier, and the male has a yellow wash to the underparts. The chirping song resembles those of house and Spanish sparrows, but is softer. The flight call is a high-pitched "chi-wit". This species is often silent. As its name suggests, is a breeding bird around the River Jordan, Dead Sea, and into Iraq, Iran
Dead Sea Essenes settled on the Dead Sea's western shore; Pliny the Elder identifies their location with the words, "on the west side of the Dead Sea, away from the coast ... [above] the town of Engeda" ("Natural History", Bk 5.73); and it is therefore a hugely popular but contested hypothesis today, that same Essenes are identical with the settlers at Qumran and that "the Dead Sea Scrolls" discovered during the 20th century in the nearby caves had been their own library. Josephus identified the Dead Sea in geographic proximity to the ancient Biblical city of Sodom. However, he referred to the