The Bronze Age city of Tall el-Hammam was located in the south of the Jordan Valley, near the Dead Sea.
During the first excavations, archaeologists found on thisin place a layer of charcoal, ash, molten bricks and pottery about one and a half meters thick. About 3,600 years ago, for some reason, the city completely burned down. Previously it was believed that an eruption, an eruption or a war took place at this place. But these versions were not confirmed.
None of these events could createtemperatures at which metal, mud bricks and pottery melt. Experiments with laboratory ovens have shown that this requires heating above 1500 ° C.
The authors of the new work believe that they have solvedthis riddle. According to them, the disaster occurred due to the explosion of an icy meteorite over the city. The body was similar to the Tunguska meteorite with a power of 12 megatons of TNT equivalent.
A minute after the fall, the shock wave reached the biblical city of Jericho: its walls collapsed and everything that was behind them burned.
Although the discovery is consistent withdescription of the destruction of Sodom in the Old Testament, there is no evidence that Tall el-Hammam is actually Sodom. But the authors are confident that the events in this territory became the basis for the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Read more:
The development of AI has reached a critical point. Scientists are asking to take control of technology
Lithium-sulfur battery with sugar holds 5 times more energy
Watch the first private crew return from space to Earth