Did the destruction of this Middle Bronze Age city inspire Sodom?

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 to less than 50 years from 1650.

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 and some had five stories. In the upper part of the city, the destructive force demolished the buildings at the height of their foundations in the walls and little mud bricks remained. From the palace which 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.

We see an asteroid fall to Earth, disintegrate in the atmosphere (illustrative). (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

In an attempt to find out what may have caused this destruction, the researchers compiled a list of possible events and tested their likelihood against the evidence found at the site.

They first looked at the possibility of fire, war, volcanic eruption, earthquake, or lightning, but concluded that these events were unlikely to cause the type of destruction they found at the site as none could have produced the intense heat required to cause the melting they found.

After ruling out these events, the researchers turned to two other possibilities: a cosmic impact or a cosmic air explosion.

The most likely cause of the destruction was a cosmic explosion caused by a comet or meteorite. The consequences of such an event also matched the evidence found by the researchers, and using an impact calculator, they were able to estimate the details of the event, which also involved the shock wave hitting Jericho. which has been reduced to the ground.

It can be assumed that the event which destroyed Tall el-Hammam would have been witnessed and recounted through the generations until the time of biblical Sodom, when the event would have been an inspiration for the story, which recounts stones and fire falling from the sky to destroy the city.