The Nature article is titled “ A Tunguska-sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea.”
Tunguska, Russia, is located in central Siberia. On June 30, 1908, a sound wave with an energy equivalent to 1,000 times the Hiroshima bomb devastated the forest within a radius of 20 km, its damage being felt up to 100 km [62 miles].
Nature‘s article presents evidence that a prosperous ancient city was instantly destroyed by a cosmic explosion around 1650 BC, which may match the Biblical story of the destruction of Sodom.
The article was written by 21 professionals from different fields, including archaeologists, geologists, geochemists, geo-morphologists, mineralogists, paleobotanists, sedimentologists, cosmic influence experts and physicians.
“It is worth speculating that a remarkable catastrophe, such as the destruction of Tall el-Hammam by a cosmic object, may have generated an oral tradition that…became the source of the written story of Biblical Sodom in Genesis. The description in Genesis of the destruction of an urban center in the Dead Sea area is consistent with having been an eyewitness account of a cosmic airburst.”
Tall el-Hammam is in ruins, but archaeological excavations and studies of its remains have been underway since 2005.
The research results are consistent with the well-known story of the destruction of Sodom, in which the Lord punished the city with fire and brimstone because of the sin of sodomy to which it gave its name.
According to scientists, rocks from the cosmos exploded 1 to 5 kilometers [1-3 miles] from the earth’s surface. The temperature at the heart of the explosion reached over 300,000° C [540,032˚F] and quickly melted everything made of ceramic, clay, and plaster. The temperature of the earth’s surface at Sodom may have exceeded 1,850° C [3,362˚ F].
After the explosion, a gust of wind of 900 to 1,200 km/h [559-745 mph] swept through the city and destroyed everything in its path. The power of the explosion was 1,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.
During the excavations, the researchers unearthed ceramic remains in the sediment, and spheres of molten metals such as platinum, iridium, nickel, gold, silver, zircon, chromite, and quartz, as well as scattered grains of zircon. Human remains were found, showing complete bone fragments and joint dislocations.
Scientists claim that the catastrophe ended a civilization, and considering the location of Tell el-Hammam, its temporal context, and how it was destroyed, some scholars believe it is most likely the biblical city of Sodom.
Steven Collins, the head of the excavation project, supports this idea and explains that due to the geography, the size of the city and its age, the evidence is indisputable and everything corresponds perfectly to the Biblical descriptions.
For example, the city of Tell el-Hammam was suddenly abandoned and has many similarities to Sodom, such as walls 10 meters [32 ft.] high and 5.2 meters [17 ft.] thick, knowing that the city of Sodom is described in the Bible as having high and thick walls because it was on an important trade route.
An article published on September 20 of this year by Nature describes the destruction of a city in the Jordan Valley, near the Dead Sea, by a formidable explosion. It seems that this site can be identified with the Biblical city of Sodom.
