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New study presents evidence that a Bronze Age town near the Dead Sea destroyed about 3,600 years ago may have been the inspiration for the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The 21 co-authors of the article, published Monday in the journal Nature, researched the remains of Tall el-Hammam in an attempt to uncover what destroyed the ancient city during the Middle Bronze Age.
During this period, about 50,000 people lived in the Jordan Valley region in three cities: Tall el-Hammam, Jericho and Tall Nimrin, Tall el-Hammam being the largest of the three. This means that until its destruction it would have been the political center of the region.
Radiocarbon dating dates the destruction less than 50 years ago to 1650 BCE.
Examination of the remains revealed evidence of a destructive event involving high temperatures, such as pieces of pottery that were melted and boiled on the outside, but normal on the inside.
The buildings of Tall el-Hammam were made of mud bricks. Some had five floors. In the upper part of the city, the destructive force demolished the buildings at the height of their foundations in the walls, and few mud bricks remained. From the palace that was in this part of the city, the walls of the first floor and the upper floors are missing, and most of the mud bricks have been pulverized.
In the lower part of town, buildings suffered more damage and researchers found evidence of thermal fracturing in the remains.
The towers in the wall that surrounded the city were also destroyed with remains of mud bricks only existing at the height of the foundation of the towers.
Researchers propose that the explosion was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, when an aerial explosion from a stony meteoroid about 50 to 60 meters (160 to 200 feet) caused a massive explosion of 12 megatons.
Archaeologists and other researchers involved in the study conclude that the air blast hypothesis would make Tall el-Hammam the second oldest city known to have been eventually destroyed by an air blast after Abu Hureyra in Syria, which could have be hit by a comet 12,800 years ago.
The authors warn that cosmic events are expected to recur every few thousand years, saying that “although the risk is low, the potential damage is extremely high, putting Earth’s cities at risk and encouraging mitigation strategies “.
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