28 September 2023 The Future is the Product of the Past

The biblical narrative of Sodom may have been inspired by a cosmic meteorite that devastated an ancient city

The Bible account of Sodom’s destruction lies at the heart of classic “fire and brimstone” judgment day prophesies. But what if it was produced by something else in the sky, like a cosmic meteor airburst?

The Bible describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:23-29, stating:

“By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.”

Researchers have uncovered 3600-year-old evidence that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam — an archaeological site in Jordan – was destroyed by a “cosmic airburst” so hot it melted brick and clay.

Researchers stand near the ruins of ancient walls, with the destruction layer about midway down each exposed wall. (Photo: Phil Silvia, CC BY-ND)
Researchers stand near the ruins of ancient walls, with the destruction layer about midway down each exposed wall. (Photo: Phil Silvia, CC BY-ND)

What proof was there for biblical-scale destruction? Pottery that had melted to glass, mudbrick that had ‘bubbled,’ and partially melted construction material were discovered behind a five-foot-thick burn layer.

Experiments with laboratory furnaces revealed that the bubbling pottery and mudbricks of Tall el-Hammam melted at temperatures exceeding 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 C). That’s hot enough to melt a car in a matter of minutes. The destruction layer also comprises microscopic balls of molten material that are smaller than dust particles in the air. Spherules are comprised of evaporated iron and sand that melted at around 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit (1,590 C).

Diamonds (center) inside a crater were formed by the fireball's high temperatures and pressures on wood and plants. (Image credit: Malcolm LeCompte, CC BY-ND)
Diamonds (center) inside a crater were formed by the fireball’s high temperatures and pressures on wood and plants. (Photo: Malcolm LeCompte, CC BY-ND)

All of these data suggest that temperatures in the city climbed faster than those caused by volcanoes, wars, or typical city fires. A cosmic collision is the sole natural process that remains.

“We saw evidence for temperatures greater than 2,000°C,” says, James Kennett, an author of the paper published in Scientific Reports.

The same evidence is found at known impact sites, such as Tunguska and the Chicxulub crater, created by the asteroid that triggered the dinosaur extinction.

Tall el hammam ancient city

Because of the abnormally large amount of salt that was spread across the area, the researchers discovered indications of an impact near the Dead Sea.

“The salt was thrown up due to the high impact pressures,” Kennett says of the meteor that likely fragmented upon contact with the Earth’s atmosphere. “And it may be that the impact partially hit the Dead Sea, which is rich in salt.”

It’s conceivable that an oral narrative of the city’s destruction was passed down through centuries before being written as the story of Biblical Sodom. The Bible narrates the destruction of a city near the Dead Sea: stones and fire rained from the heavens, more than one city was destroyed, dense smoke ascended from the burning, and city residents were slaughtered. Could this be an eyewitness report from the past? If this is the case, Tall el Hammam’s maybe the second-oldest destruction of a human town by a cosmic impact event, following the village of Abu Hureyra in Syria around 12,800 years ago. It is also possible that this is the earliest recorded record of such a terrible catastrophe.

Cosmos Magazine

Banner
Related Post

In southern Turkey, the remains of a Roman villa whose floor was decorated with geometrically patterned mosaics were unearthed during construction

13 July 2022

13 July 2022

Workers working to lay the foundation of a new building in the Defne district of Hatay, southern Turkey, by accident...

The discovery of a 380-million-year-old heart sheds new light on our bodies’ evolution

16 September 2022

16 September 2022

Researchers from Curtin University have discovered the world’s oldest heart in a ‘beautifully preserved’ ancient jawed fish fossil 380 million...

Staging of religion on rock paintings that are thousands of years old in southern Egypt desert

10 May 2023

10 May 2023

Egyptologists at the University of Bonn and the University of Aswan want to systematically record hundreds of petroglyphs and inscriptions...

According to researchers, the bones discovered underneath St. Peter’s Basilica may not be his

5 June 2021

5 June 2021

Three Italian researchers have voiced doubts about whether St. Peter’s bones are buried underneath the Rome basilica that bears his...

Khirbet Midras pyramid and  Archaeological Site in Israel

28 November 2022

28 November 2022

Khirbet Midras (Arabic) or Horvat Midras (Hebrew) is one of several antiquities sites located within the Adullam Grove National Park,...

Archaeologists in Israel are restoring the largest Roman Basilica in the country

6 June 2021

6 June 2021

Archaeologists in Israel are trying to rebuild a 2,000-year-old Roman-era basilica that is thought to be the country’s biggest. A...

The 2800-year-old Urartians Lake, which is an engineering masterpiece of its time, is drying

13 July 2023

13 July 2023

Keşiş Lake in Van, in eastern Turkey, which was built by the Urartu King Rusa 2,800 years ago, was negatively...

Visit Baalbek’s Famous Temples with a Free 3d Virtual Tour

10 April 2021

10 April 2021

Baalbek, which has traces of settlement since 9000 BC, was one of the cornerstones of ancient civilizations. The famous Baalbek temple...

A cobbled ford uncovered near Evesham could be the finest Roman example of its type in Britain

19 October 2022

19 October 2022

A cobbled ford believed to be of Roman construction has been discovered near Evesham in Worcestershire, England. If the path...

Archaeologists discovered 130 dwellings around the Ringheiligtum Pömmelte monument “German Stonehenge”

15 June 2021

15 June 2021

Archaeologists have unearthed 130 dwellings at an Early Bronze Age monument in Germany, indicating that the ‘Stonehenge’ was once home...

Export barred on roundel manuscript gifted to Queen Elizabeth I by Archbishop

12 September 2022

12 September 2022

A rare presentation manuscript that Archbishop of Canterbury Matthew Parker gave to Queen Elizabeth I in 1573 has been sold...

A New Late Ancient Necropolis Discovered on Hvar Island

10 June 2021

10 June 2021

The protective investigation in the garden of the Radoevi Palace in the town of Hvar on the Croatian island of...

World’s Smallest Stegosaurus Track Found

14 March 2021

14 March 2021

The smallest trace of stegosaurus in the world that lived 155 million years ago was found. Stegosaurus, a herbivorous dinosaur,...

New Study Finds, 4,000-Year-Old Toolkit Unearthed Near Stonehenge Was Used to Work Gold

16 December 2022

16 December 2022

Archaeologists from the Universities of Leicester and Southampton in the United Kingdom recently published a study claiming that enigmatic artifacts...

In Peru, Archaeologists Discovered an Ancient Dance Floor that can Imitate Rumbling of Thunder

21 July 2023

21 July 2023

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient “sounding” dance floor in Peru that was designed to create a drum-like sound when stepped...

Comments
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *