Scientists are close to unraveling the mystery, which is more than two thousand years old: where exactly were and how the famous "cities of sin" - Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. American archaeologists claim that they were not located where it is commonly believed. However, not everyone in the scientific community agrees with them. About a hot historical dispute.
Alien crystals
Archaeologists have examined the remains of ancient pottery found in Tell Al-Hammam (Jordan), northeast of the Dead Sea, and found something strange on them.
Radiocarbon analysis showed that each of the pieces of ceramic is covered with microscopic crystals of various minerals - they seemed to stick together under the influence of high temperatures. This could happen only on one condition - there was a powerful explosion.
Excavations at Tell Al Hammam at the site of the alleged location of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
In addition, scientists have found the ruins of a fortress wall approximately 3,700 years old - bricks from it were scattered in a strange way. It turned out that the wall was literally swept away in a matter of seconds.
This explains the increased sulfur content in the Dead Sea and coastal soil. In addition, the proposed version, according to scientists, more or less fits the biblical description of the death of Sodom and Gomorrah - as in the literal sense of "heavenly punishment."
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“And the Lord rained sulfur and fire from the Lord from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah, and overthrew these cities, and all this neighborhood, and all the inhabitants of these cities, and (all) the growth of the earth,” says the Book of Genesis.
Painting Lot with the daughters of Lucas van Leyden. Around 1509, Louvre, Paris.
It is noteworthy that the meteorite has a twin brother. The head of the excavations in Tell Al-Hammam, Philip Silva, notes that the dimensions of the space alien that destroyed the biblical cities roughly coincided with the famous Tunguska meteorite that fell in 1908: here and there the epicenter of the explosion (it is on it that the dimensions of the celestial body are determined), according to experts, was 15 kilometers.
Symbols of Sin
What does the Bible say about Sodom and Gomorrah? In this area lived Lot, Abraham's nephew, who is considered the forefather of the Jewish people. They came to the land of Canaan by the command of the Lord from the city of Ur to Mesopotamia (the territory of modern Iraq).
Sodom and Gomorrah were located in the Siddim Valley, extremely fertile: it was located below sea level, and all the numerous rivers flowed here from the surrounding mountains. One of them was the Jordan River, the name of which literally translates as “descended”.
Jordan River.
There were three more cities in this valley - Sivoim, Sigor and Adma. According to the Bible, all five settlements were in a military alliance.
Clashes constantly took place between the "Sodom five-city" and the surrounding city-states. Even Abraham participated in them - for this he equipped a detachment of 318 soldiers.
But one day two angels appeared to Lot in Sodom. He, mistaking them for travelers, invited them to his house according to the Eastern custom.
Excavations at Tell Al Hammam at the site of the alleged location of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Those men said to Lot: 'Who else do you have here? Whether your son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whoever you have in the city, bring everyone out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because there is a great cry against its inhabitants to the Lord, and the Lord sent us to destroy it … “- after that Lot told the husbands of his daughters to get ready, but they jokingly took his warning.
Lot left Sodom with only a wife and two daughters. The angels commanded the fugitives not to turn around. But Lot's wife disobeyed "and became a pillar of salt."
Fresco The Flight of Lot from Sodom by Raphael in the palace of the Pope in the Vatican.
According to legend, the same pillar of salt that Lot's wife turned to is located southwest of the Dead Sea in the Sodom Mountains. From here, in ancient times, a version appeared that the famous cities were located in the southern part of the lake.
This version is also supported by the fact that Lot, who fled from Sodom, and his daughters settled in the city of Sigor, located in the southeastern part of the Dead Sea near the Kerek valley (modern Jordan). However, as the Bible tells us, he was afraid to be in this city and moved to the nearest caves.
Lot's cave in Jordan. RIA Novosti / Anton Skripunov.
The cave where Lot lived with his daughters is located just east of Sigor. In the first centuries of Christianity, it became a place of pilgrimage - in the early 1990s, a church built by the Byzantines was excavated in honor of the biblical prophet.
He, like a number of other researchers, is sure that Sodom and Gomorrah were in the southern part of the Dead Sea, which has been rapidly swamping in recent years. Numerous finds on the shoal can be considered as proof.
View of the Dead Sea Valley from Mount Lot, Jordan. RIA Novosti / Anton Skripunov.
Scientists note that the saltiest lake in the world is getting smaller from year to year. This makes it possible to thoroughly explore this place.
Attempts to explore the bottom of the Dead Sea in the hope of finding famous cities have been made several times. You cannot call them successful. True, sometimes something comes across. In 2012, for example, a Russian-Jordanian group of researchers managed to photograph the bottom of a reservoir. The resulting images show the ruins of a small town.
Lot's wife on Mount Sodom, Israel.
In a lifeless valley
Scientific research is further complicated by the fact that exactly in the middle of the Dead Sea lies the border between Israel and Jordan. For several decades, these states were at war with each other. Only with the signing of a peace treaty in 1994 and the subsequent demining of the Jordan Valley were scientists able to begin exploring the region. However, no one has yet fully explored the bottom of the Dead Sea.
A team of archaeologists led by Philip Silva is looking for Sodom and Gomorrah not at all in the south of the Dead Sea, according to the prevailing version in science, but in the place of Tell Al-Hammam. The fact is that in the Book of Genesis it is said that Lot came to Sodom through the Kikkar valley, where the Jordan flows into a salt lake: “Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the entire vicinity of Jordan, that before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, all Sigora was watered with water like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt."
View of the Jordan Valley from Mount Nebo, Jordan. RIA Novosti / Anton Skripunov.
According to scientists, the entire Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea can only be seen from the mountains in the vicinity of the modern Jordanian city of Madaba. The most famous of them is Nebo. From there, according to the Bible, the prophet Moses, a descendant of Abraham, who left Egypt, first saw the Promised Land. There, as scientists believe, contemplated the majestic view of Canaan, who came from Mesopotamia, Lot.
According to the scientist, ruins of ancient cities found in Tell Al-Hammam testify in favor of this version. However, it is too early to say about the final solution to one of the main biblical secrets - research continues.
Anton Skripunov
