Scientists have found that a “superheated blast from the skies” destroyed cities near the Dead Sea 3,700 years ago, which biblical analysts are saying echoes the destruction of Sodom.
Science News reported that the new findings were revealed at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research last week by archaeologist Phillip Silvia of Trinity Southwest University in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The scientists discovered radiocarbon dating and unearthed minerals that instantly crystallized at high temperatures at what used to be cities and farming settlements north of the Dead Sea, suggesting that a massive air-burst, possibly by a meteor, destroyed communities in a 15-mile-wide circular plain.
Silva said that following the cataclysmic event, people did not return to the region for 600 to 700 years.
Researchers have been studying five large sites in Middle Ghor in present day Jordan, which are believed to have been continuously occupied for at least 2,500 years, until they suddenly collapsed at the end of the Bronze Age.
Some of the strongest evidence for a low-altitude meteor explosion was found at the remains of the city of Tall el-Hammam, where radiocarbon dating shows that the mud-brick walls of nearly all structures were suddenly wiped out 3,700 years ago.
Other remarkable finds show that the outer layers of pieces of pottery seemed to have melted into glass, as a result of extremely high temperatures.
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SOURCE: Christian Post, Stoyan Zaimov
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