Water politics in the Jordan River basin floodplain, the "zhor" (or "Zur"), with a wildly meandering course, which accounts for the excessive length of the river in comparison to the straight-line distance to reach the Dead Sea. Small dams were built along the river within the Zhor, turning the former thickets of reeds, tamarisk, willows, and white poplars into irrigated fields. After flowing through the Zur, the Jordan drains into the Dead Sea across a broad, gently sloping delta. In the upper Jordan river basin, upstream of the Sea of Galilee, the tributaries include: The lower Jordan River tributaries include: The riparian rights to the Jordan River
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