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Some 3,700 years ago, a meteor or comet exploded in the Middle East, killing human life on a strip of land called Middle Ghor, north of the Dead Sea, said archaeologists who found evidence of this cosmic flight. ] The airburst "instantly devastated about 500 km2 [about 200 square miles] just north of the Dead Sea, not only wiping out 100% of towns and villages, but also stripping farmland from once fertile lands and covering the east of the country. Middle Ghor with an overheated brine of Dead Sea Anhydrous salts pushed back into the landscape by the frontal shockwaves of the event, "the researchers wrote in a summary presented as part of an article presented to the Annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, at Nov 14-17. Anhydride salts are a mixture of salt and sulphates.
"According to archaeological evidence, it took at least 600 years to recover enough from the destruction and contamination of the soil before civilization, could again settle in eastern Middle Ghor," he said. they write. Tall el-Hammam, an old city of 36 hectares, was part of the destroyed places. [Wipe Out: History’s Most Mysterious Extinctions]
Unusual Pottery
Among the pieces of evidence discovered by scientists during the aerial explosion are pieces of pottery from Tall el-Hammam, 3,700 years old, which have an unusual appearance. The surface of the pottery had been vitrified (transformed into glbad). The temperature was also so high that pieces of zircon in the pottery turned into gas, which requires a temperature above 7,230 degrees Fahrenheit (4,000 degrees Celsius), said Phillip Silvia, field archaeologist and supervisor at the excavation of Tall el-Hammam. Project. However, the heat, although powerful, did not last long enough to burn entire pottery pieces, leaving parts of the pottery beneath the surface relatively unharmed.
This picture shows the site of Tell el-Hammam in Jordan. New research suggests that 3,700 years ago, an air explosion destroyed this city and its surroundings.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Phillip Silvia
The only natural event capable of causing such an unusual destruction process, said Silvia is an air explosion – something that has occurred occasionally in the history of the Earth, as the explosion of Tunguska in 1908 in Siberia. there is, said Silvia. Until now, no crater has been found nearby and it is unclear whether the culprit was a meteor or comet that exploded above the ground.
The fact that only 200 square miles of land was destroyed indicates that the explosion occurred at low altitude. , probably no more than 3,280 feet (1 km) above the ground, said Silvia. In comparison, the Tunguska plane damaged a great deal, 830 square miles or 2,150 square kilometers of land.
The results of the team are preliminary and the research is ongoing, Silvia stressed. The team of scientists includes members from Trinity University Southwest, Northern Arizona, DePaul, Elizabeth City State University, New Mexico Tech and Comet Research Group.
Originally published on Live Science.
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