The biblical city of Sodom shattered by a huge explosion of asteroids

An asteroid that exploded in an air explosion may have destroyed the city of Tall el-Hammam from the Bronze Age 3700 years ago, archaeologists said on Saturday.

The city, located in the Middle Ghor region in the Jordan Valley, is considered by some scholars as a plausible site for the biblical city of Sodom. But this conclusion is hotly debated on the ground.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God for their sinful behavior, according to the Christian Bible.

Scientists presented their preliminary findings at the annual meeting of American schools of Oriental research in Denver, Colorado.

Excavations and radiocarbon dating at Tall el-Hammam have suggested that most of its raw brick walls disappeared about 3,700 years ago. It was thought that several sites in the Middle Ghor had been inhabited for 2,500 years or more before the proposed impact.

The minerals that have suddenly crystallized under a scorching heat reinforce this concept, said archeologist Phillip Silvia, of the Christian institution Trinity Southwest University in Albuquerque. Silvia and her colleagues searched the city for more than ten years, Scientific news declared.

The huge breath "not only [wiped] 100% of the towns and villages of the Middle Bronze Age, but also [stripped] agricultural soils of formerly fertile fields, "wrote researchers in a summary. The shock waves may have pushed the very hot white waters of the Dead Sea over eastern Middle Ghor, they added.

Photo of file: an artist represents an asteroid heading towards the Earth. Getty Images

Researchers suspect that people only returned to the region 600-700 years after the explosion, which probably wiped out settlements in an area 15 km north of the Dead Sea in Jordan. ; aujourd & # 39; hui, Scientific news reported.

The publication added that the outer layer of some pottery of the time had apparently melted glass. The pottery also revealed traces of tiny grains of minerals that formed in Tall el-Hammam after being swept by strong winds.

In other recent archaeological news, Egyptian teams have discovered some interesting discoveries, such as the 3,500-year-old skeleton of a heavily pregnant woman, a sphinx statue, a huge structure with an adjacent room for them. religious rituals, a tomb filled with some 800 graves. and ancient figurative tattoos on 5,000-year-old mummies.

In recent months, researchers around the world have discovered what could be a 2,000-year-old rice wine in China, the remains of a sacrificial lama on a 3,000-year-old grave in Peru and a board game hidden in a secret room under a medieval castle of Russia.