Archaeologists Return to Excavate Possible Site of Biblical Sodom

Archaeologists Return to Excavate Possible Site of Biblical Sodom


Wed, Jun 06, 2012

Scholars have historically been looking in the wrong place, says archaeologist. Extraordinary evidence of a destructive, fiery event uncovered.

A team of archaeologists, volunteers and students will be returning in January, 2013, to a massive archaeological site that, according to some scholars, may be the leading candidate for the long-sought site of the ill-fated ancient biblical city of Sodom, the city that was subjected to a fiery demise by divine providence as recorded in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible. ​

The team, led by Dr. Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University and Hussein el- Jarrah of the Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, will be excavating a large mound ("Tall" or "Tel") called Tall el-Hammam, located amidst agricultural fields northeast of the Dead Sea in the southern Jordan River Valley. It is a place that features an extensive layer-cake of ancient architectural and artifact remains going back to Chalcolithic times, or 4300 - 3300 B.C.E. Although it shows human occupation up to early Islamic times, its most prominent and salient remains represent cities, each built successively atop the other, that existed during the Early Bronze (3300 - 2350 B.C.E.), Intermediate Bronze (2350 - 2000 B.C.E.), Middle Bronze (2000 - 1550 B.C.E.) and Late Bronze (1550 - 1200 B.C.E.) periods, with a 500 to 700-year gap beginning near the end of the Middle Bronze period and extending into the beginning of the Late Bronze, when evidence (or lack thereof) indicates few or no people occupied the site. A layer of occupation that shows evidence of a violent, fiery destruction has also been found at the site.​

The site's location, size, occupation periods, stratigraphy, and some of the finds suggest, at least according to Collins, that the remains may possibly be none other than that of the infamous biblical city of Sodom as documented in the Book of Genesis. Most significantly, he maintains that the bibilical text provides geographical clues that locate the city northeast of the Dead Sea within the rich agricultural area of what is today the southern Jordan River Valley -- not the desert just southeast of the southern tip of the Dead Sea, as many scholars have long suggested (see the video below).
One curious, puzzling mystery relates to the layer that shows no human occupation for 500 to 700 years.
"Given its apparently long and stable history as the region's dominant city-state (even flourishing through the catastrophic climatological changes that brought an end to the Levantine Early Bronze Age, ca. 2350 BCE)", writes Collins, "it's remarkable that Tall el-Hammam and its neighbors (noteably Tall Nimrin, likely center of the city-state to Hammam's immediate north) suffered a civilization-ending calamity, uniquely their own, toward the end of the Middle Bronze Age. While cities to the west (Jericho, Jerusalem, Bethel, Hebron), north (Deir 'Alla, Pella, Beth Shan), and east (Rabbath-Ammon, Tall al-Umayri, Nebo) continued in the Late Bronze Age, the cities, towns, and villages of the eastern Jordan Disk [where Tall el- Hammam is located] did not..........That the most productive agricultural land in the region, which had supported flourishing civilizations continuously for at least 3,000 years, should suddenly relinquish, then resist, human habitation for such a long period of time begs investigation."
Another curiosity relates to an extraordinary pottery sherd (or fragment), found within the ash "destruction" layer, which features a striking and unusual glazed appearance (see video below). Pottery glazing has not been found on pottery until more than 1,000 years later than the date of the sherd. Laboratory testing and analysis of the fragment shows that it was apparently exposed to extremely high temperatures, a level that far exceeds that normally used to fire and treat pottery, ancient or modern, and that also far exceeds temperatures typically reached during fires. Such temperatures could be produced, for example, by the effects of a thermonuclear explosion, or a cataclysm of cosmic origin. But what could explain the conditon of this particular sherd, dated to the Bronze Age, thousands of years ago? Will other, similar examples be found through further excavations? The mystery remains.
The Sodom hypothesis aside, the excavations and analysis of the finds to date suggest that Tall el-Hammam represents what is left of the hub of a Bronze Age city-state complex at the cross-roads of major trade routes, rising to prominence as the economic powerhouse in the southern Jordan River Valley and influencing and possibly controlling a system of smaller settlements in the region. Generations of kings built palaces, temples, administrative centers, and massive fortifications and defensive walls at this location. More important than the question of Sodom is the significance of the site as it relates to the ancient Middle East from an archaeological and anthropological perspective. Who were these people and how did they live? How did they relate to the other kingdoms of the Middle East at the time, such as Mesopotamia and Egypt? What impact did these people and what they built have on surrounding civilizations and how do the cultural remains help us to understand this part of the world at that time? Archaeologists hope to find answers to these questions through continuing excavations and research.
Collins makes clear that objective archaeological investigation of the site, whether or not there is any connection with Sodom, trumps any quest for the infamous biblical city. "Doing archaeology solely from a biblical perspective can mean missing the larger reality of Near Eastern cultural milieus," he writes. "A biblical (hermeneutical) bias might possibly influence the interpretation of data which, ironically, could otherwise be used to illumine the biblical narrative itself. In all archaeological endeavors, what we must strive for is objectivity. Indeed, sites with no clear biblical connection are just as important for determining the history of the region. Archaeological importance should never be equated with biblical importance. A careful assessment of all evidential avenues is the only reasonable approach to archaeology."
However, by investigating all evidential avenues, he also includes the possibility of any connection to
 the biblical account of Sodom.
"With the importance of empirical investigation understood, the pragmatic perspective makes a probable link between biblical Sodom and Tall el-Hammam a significant factor. At any rate, we would be irresponsible not to investigate such potential connections."
More detailed information about the Tall el-Hammam excavations and the discoveries, including how one can participate, can be found at http://www.tallelhammam.com/Tall_el_Hammam.html.
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Causes And Effects Of The 2350 BC Middle East Anomaly Evidenced By Micro-debris Fallout, Surface Combustion And Soil Explosion

Abstract of talk by Marie-Agnès Courty

CNRS-CM. Lab. de Science des Sols et Hydrologic, INA P-G, 78850 Grignon, France. email: fedoroff[at]diamant.jouy.inra.dr
Presented at the SIS Conference: Natural Catastrophes during Bronze Age Civilisations (11th-13th July 1997)


Further investigations allow to re-examine the nature, age, causes and effects of the third millennium catastrophe identified from our earlier findings. Test on various late Gird millennium BC archaeological deposit and contemporaneous provides evidence for the regional occurrence in northern Syria of a layer with an uncommon petrographic assemblage, dated at ca. 2350 BC (transition between late Early Dynastic and Early Akkad). It consists of fine send-sized, well sorted spherules of various composition (silica, silicates and fibro-radiated calcite), millimetric fragments of a black, vesicular, amorphous material made of silicates with Mg-Ca carbonate and phosphate inclusions, ovoid micro-aggregates made of densely packed crystals (calcite, gypsum or feldspars) and exogenous angular fragments of a coarse crystallised igneous rock. All these particles are only present in this specific layer and are finely mixed with mud-brick debris or with a burnt surface horizon in the contemporaneous soils.



In occupation sequences, the layer displays an uncommon dense packing of sand-sized, very porous aggregates that suggests disintegration of the mud-brick construction by an air blast. In the virgin soil, the burnt horizon contains black soot and graphite, and appears to have been instantaneously fossilised by a rapid and uncommon colluvial wash (Melt: "colluviums or colluvia
A loose deposit of rock debris accumulated through the action of rainwash or gravity at the base of a gently sloping cliff or slope.")


. Occurrence in a previously recorded thick tephra (Solid matter that is ejected into the air by an erupting volcano) deposit of particles identical to some of the mysterious layer and resemblance of its original pseudo-sand fabric with t he exploded one of the mysterious layer confirms that the later is contemporaneous with the tephra deposit It has been however impossible to find typical tephra shards in sites located at a few km around the one with the tephra deposit The restricted occurrence of the later suggests that the massive tephra accumulation can no longer be considered as a typical fallout derived from the dispersion of material from a terrestrial volcanic explosion.



Analytical investigations in various directions have been unable, so far, to refute or confirm that a cosmic event would have been the cause for production of both the widely distributed mysterious particles and the localised thick tephra. Origin of this mysterious phenomena still remains unsolved.


The excellent stratigraphical correlation between sites that are distant of a few hundred km clearly shows that the instantaneous dust fallout, previously considered as the initiative mechanism to the ca. 2200 yr BC abrupt climate change, occurred more than one hundred years earlier. The loose soil fabric, originally correlated with effects of strong winds and rapid establishment of aridity, can now be re-interpreted and possibly assigned to a violent blow-up. The theory of the Akkad empire collapse has, however, lost its basis. Soil specialists, geochemists and archaeologists should join their effort to solve this problem, and debate the exact nature of the socio cultural echo to this extraordinary event Our study illustrates the exceptional potential of archaeological sites to offer well preserved sedimentary archives of instantaneous phenomena that have shacked past terrestrial environments. It also demonstrates the importance of a high temporal resolution for debating causality of natural catastrophe on societal phenomena. Soil-sedimentary markers are in a way less subjective than historical sources for providing such a precision, although their interpretation might also be controversial, particularly when facing lack of analogues from the past or the present.
MARIE-AGNÈS COURTY is a geologist and researcher at the French Centre for Scientific Research. Her scientific background is in Earth Sciences, Quaternary Geology and Prehistory. She is specialised in research on i) sedimentary formation processes of archaeological sites based on the use of soil micromorphology; ii) reconstruction of ancient paleogeography with a special focus on effects of geodynamical constrains on human settlement pattern and effects of natural factors on the preservation of past human landscapes; iii) palaeoclimatic reconstructions based on the study of soil archives. Her main research areas are North West Europe, North West India, the Middle East.

 

To me, the following raises the question of whether a volcanic event in the area below blasted debris and dust onto 'Sodom'? I've literally just read all the things I'm posting here, so just taking a guess. Alll the indicators seem to show though that it was a meteor, but the presence of the volcanic debris may show something else.

MelT

"...
A castle on Lipari has proved to be an archaeological goldmine, with each successive culture neatly layered one on top of the other, and so we know much more about the early inhabitants of the Aeolian Islands than Diodoros. Lipari was first inhabited in 3000 B.C. by a people from the Near East, who also settled the east coast of Sicily: their first pottery bears the same Stentinello decorations of simple incisions or impressions.
Then, it appears, the islanders discovered obsidian, and began to mine and export it on a large scale. Obsidian, hard volcanic glass, was highly prized in the Neolithic age as being superior to flint for making tools. Obsidian from Lipari found a wide market; examples have been discovered in France, Spain and Malta. The contact with different peoples introduced different styles of ceramic decorations, the Capri style, the Serra d’Alto style, and a rather charming style thought to have been developed locally, the Diana style, named for the fertile Diana plain around the castle, the first part of island to be cultivated.
Around 2350 B.C., this flourishing obsidian-exporting civilization suddenly vanished, for reasons unknown, and was succeeded by what is known as the Aeolian Medieval Period, towards the end of the Neolithic and beginning of the Copper Age...."

 

The below has not been checked for accuracy, it may have some bias, I post it simply for reference until I know otherwise.
MelT

COMET-CAUSED COLLAPSE OF THIRD MILLENNIUM BC CIVILIZATIONS? \tAs the newly discovered Comet Hale-Bopp grew brighter in the early spring of 1997 and eventually made a remarkable nightly appearance lasting about a month, speculation about its calculated previous appearance in 2213 BC and resultant effects on our early ancestors seeing it at dawn of civilization began to be exchanged. But nothing could be found in the scant written records of these early civilizations. \t
Newsweek, March 24, 1997, page 60, noted a scramble to discover contemporary mention of the comet's last appearance over four millennia ago had turned up nothing in the spotty records of ancient China, the Mohenjo-daro civilization of the north Indian subcontinent, ancient Mesopotamia, and ancient Egypt. A mere mention would certify one or more of the presently shaky archeological chronologies, so experts on ancient civilizations would seem to have been powerfully motivated to scrutinize the scanty surviving records to find even a surviving mythological allusion. And yet, so far they have found nothing.
\tThat is, at very least, curious. The absence of ancient record may strike those familiar with ancient acute fascination for celestial events as indicating something significantly lacking in either ancient records or in archeological discovery of them. What could be wrong? \t
A disturbing answer is that perhaps there may have been observation. The comet may have been seen. But before careful observations could be recorded - possibly awaiting final official decisions on portents, or maybe simply waiting a normal cyclical resolution to the heavenly phenomenon - a disastrous collision with Earth by a significant comet fragment may have taken place. And this caused sudden catastrophic global climate changes.
\tCoincident with the previous appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp in 2213 BC, something singularly dreadful seems to have happened on our small fragile blue planet. Not only does it appear that both the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations totally collapsed for a century or more, there is evidence of a sudden catastrophic-but-temporary climate change at this time. Is there a "bad weather" connection? Should we be concerned with the connection if there is one? \t
It is unlikely that the date 2213 BC could be wrong, although over the past four millennia it is conceivable that something gravitationally significant may have intersected with the orbit of comet Hale-Bopp and altered it, thus changing the date of its last appearance. But astronomically speaking, 4200 years is fairly insignificant, and objects with that much serious gravity are pretty sparse in space. So the orbit-extrapolated date of 2213 BC would seem reliable. \t
It would seem that Hale-Bopp made at least a notable if not spectacular appearance in the night sky four millennia ago, and the astronomy-based state religions of numerous centers of early agricultural civilization would have noted and recorded it either in official religious mythology or in observed fact, and somewhere at least fragment should have survived. But there appears to be no recorded mention. \t
Whatever happened that led to the remarkable omission would seem to have happened swiftly and planet-wide here on Earth. And while records from the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations mention no comet, they do contain suggestions of a catastrophe that may leave us with some worrisome implications for our near or distant future. \t
The ancient Egyptian chronology used by Egyptologist Aidan Dodson in his 1995 book Monarchs of the Nile, based on latest research, has the pharaoh Pepi II (prenomen Neferkare) ruling Egypt between 2290 and 2196 BC when Hale-Bopp is calculated to have last appeared in 2213 BC. According to this dating system, comet Hale-Bopp would have made its appearance in the 77th year of good king Pepi's reign.
\tBut there is something puzzling about Pepi II. According to the surviving records, his reign lasted 94 years. Egyptologists have gone into figurative contortions to explain this. The prevailing view is that Pepi's accession came when he was only six, and that he lived to be a hundred. But, as Dodson mentions, some have suggested that Pepi's long reign should be reduced to sixty-four years. The length of the reign, then, is, at very least, in dispute. And given the difficulties in precise dating, 64 years is close enough to to the year 77 of Pepi II's reign, when the comet would have appeared, to raise questions about the causes of its end. \t
What is not in dispute is what followed the reign of Pepi II. The next pharaoh, Nemtyemsaf II, lasted a year, probably a fraction. Then, in 2195 BC (if we accept the ninety-four-year reign, or 30 years earlier, 2225 BC, or maybe somewhere in between like 2213 BC?), came a period of such political and record-keeping chaos that not only is it called the First Intermediate Period, but the dynasties are uncertain and called "VII" and "VIII," and even the next two dynasties following the First Intermediate are conspicuously puzzled-out and called "Dynasties IX/X" and "Dynasty XIa." The period of confusion between the present disputes for the end Pepi II's reign and the end of Dynasty XIa thus goes from just prior to or just after 2200 BC to 2066 BC, about a century to a century and a half.
\tSomething happened at about the time the comet appeared that threw Egypt into chaos for a number of generations, several lifetimes, long enough for word-of-mouth memory to forget. It appears to have occurred suddenly, caused chaos, and by the time chaos ended generations later, the initiating series of events were no longer part of living memory.
\tCorroboration comes from Mesopotamia. Something brought down the Akkadian civilization. \t
Around 2200 BC - give or take at least a decade in the approximate dating and close enough to the comet's last appearance to raise questions - civilization collapsed. Reference to the initial collapse is contained in "The Curse of Naram-Sin," a clay-tablet docu-drama about transgression and heavenly punishment of the last king of Akkad, Naram-Sin. In it, hill people known as the Guti, probably ancestors of the modern Kurds (and possibly the same word if one pronounces "Guti" with a combination of a Boston accent, a soft "G" and a hard "t" to make it "Kurdi") overrun Akkad amid allusions to a sudden climate change. Subsequently people we call the Amorites, whom the Sumerian script calls the MARTU (who spoke a language closer to Hebrew than Akkadian), appeared from the west and overran what would appear to be a futile attempt to restore the Akkadian Empire from the ancient city of Ur. This was followed - in Mesopotamia, as would appear to have simultaneously occurred in Egypt - by a period of chaos lasting a century and a half to two centuries. \t
Two independent areas of ancient civilization collapsed at about the time comet Hale-Bopp last appeared. That should be troubling. The sudden appearance of a strange celestial object might cause temporary panic in the populations of these two ancient empires. Indeed we see the same phenomenon in the cult-suicide of Applewhite and his followers even in our enlightened scientific age. But temporary panic would hardly seem sufficient to have brought about the kind of serious political and economic collapse that lasted over a century in both ancient areas of civilization. \t
A group of Yale University archaeologists and scientists investigating the period at an archeological site in Mesopotamia called Tell Leilan has uncovered something that in this context may summon a scary scenario. In an article in Science, 20 August 1993 (page 995) titled "The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization," Weiss, et al, found, if I may quote a bit of the abstract: "At 2200 B.C., a marked increase in aridity and wind circulation, subsequent to a volcanic eruption, induced a considerable degradation of land-use conditions. After four centuries of urban life, this abrupt climate change evidently caused the abandonment of Tel Leilan." \t
Not only did two great ancient civilizations suddenly collapse and enter into chaos for over a century - sinisterly coincident with the previous appearance of comet Hale-Bopp - a cataclysmic event, followed by a serious sudden temporary climate change, appears to have taken place at the onset of the collapse. \t
Did some large part of comet Hale-Bopp collide with our delicate small blue planet in 2213 BC? Clear in our present memory are those remarkable Earth-based and space telescope photographs of Comet Shoemaker-Levy, broken up into a string of giant objects, serially colliding with the giant planet Jupiter between July 16 and July 22, 1994.
\tIs it possible that the comet Hale-Bopp we saw for a month in the spring of 1997 is only a part of a once larger comet that appeared in 2213 BC? Might some of the rest of that comet now be part of the matter of our planet Earth after having collided with it in 2213 BC?
\tWhat effect would a high-speed impact of a several-mile-diameter giant snowball have with our planet's landmass, in, say far away North America, Siberia, or Australia - in other words far enough from Egypt and Mesopotamia not to have been recorded as the cause of devastating effects? It seems conceivable that the impact could throw up debris similar to that of a volcanic eruption, or alternatively, it would seem that the resultant giant vapor cloud could bring about, first, a solar-energy occlusion, and then a resulting sudden mini-ice-age, and then planetary water-weight shift would precipitate increases in volcanic activity adding magnitude to the temporary climate change.
\tThe coincidence of (1) the comet Hale-Bopp's last appearance in 2213 BC, (2) the total collapse of two significant ancient civilizations for over a century beginning around 2200 BC, and (3) good evidence of a sudden climate-changing catastrophe around 2200 BC seems too much for thoughtful folks to ignore. Something sudden and terrible, associated with the comet Hale-Bopp, would appear to have happened.
\tDid our ancient ancestors get bopped by a fragment of Hale-Bopp? If so, where did it hit? And: might there be another fragment following Hale-Bopp out there that could intersect with our planet's orbit? Again?
This resource page is copyright © 2001-2002 Tom Slattery. \t

 

The mass of text is unfortunate, but I've realised that others don't have the time to find information, so have posted here as much as I could find on the subject so that a decent debate could take place. I think it's a good thing to have as much factual evidence of what we discuss here to save us all conjecture, but don't worry, I'm not going to make a habit of it unless there is a variety of opposing info', these last few days have been a necessary exception

MelT

 

Yes, you're right, I've let the formatting go on a lot of posts recently because of a lack of time. Quality will be assured on future posts

MelT