For a long time people knew about the tragic destruction of ancient Palestinian cities only from the Bible. The Old Testament told us how the Lord punished the inhabitants of these cities with fire for an immoral lifestyle. But in 1894, archaeological excavations in an early Christian temple in the city of Madaba (biblical Medeva) revealed to the world a beautiful mosaic panel of the 6th century, created by Byzantine craftsmen, in the form of a geographical map. Much to the delight of archaeologists, the panel depicts the city of Sigor, the closest neighbor of Sodom. Sigor is the only city of the Sodom five-city, which God has spared. Sodom and Gomorrah were also painted on the panel. Scientists have found the ruins of these cities buried underground and made sure that they were the victim of a massive fire. On the outskirts of Sodom, a cemetery was discovered with 20 thousand burials made simultaneously. Isn't a similar catastrophe threatening you and me and how to avoid it? But before answering these questions, let's turn to the history of biblical cities.
Clay disc from Sumer
Various versions of the catastrophic destruction of cities were put forward. But the clue came from an unexpected direction. For a century and a half, the British Museum has kept a clay disc with the arrangement of stars and planets on it. Rather, the museum contains an Assyrian copy, also quite ancient, of a Sumerian disc. Many centuries ago, a Sumerian astronomer reflected an interesting celestial phenomenon on a clay disc. All this was plotted on a fairly accurate map of the starry sky, at the limit of the then possibilities.
In 2008, astronomer, Doctor of Physical Sciences Mark Hempsell from the University of Bristol (UK) became interested in the disk. The stars and planets depicted on it were crossed by a dashed line. The scientist came to the conclusion that the Sumerian astronomer thus depicted a bright object that crossed the sky and flew towards Europe. The passage of a large meteorite was apparently quite impressive.
Hempsell set out to find out when and where the meteorite flew. Having the appropriate computer programs and knowing, thanks to the disk, the location of the stars in the sky at that distant time, it was possible to quite accurately determine the day when all this happened. After three months of hard work, the scientist received the first result: it happened in the middle of the summer of 3123 BC.
Deadly beauty
Promotional video:
They managed to figure out where the huge meteorite fell - in the Austrian Alps. According to the picture recreated by scientists, a meteorite with a diameter of more than a kilometer made a powerful explosion. As a result, the dust column rose to an altitude of about 900 kilometers (for comparison: the International Space Station flies at an altitude of about 400 kilometers). The molten pieces of rock also scattered in different directions for many kilometers, which then began to dive to the ground. Their temperature was 500-700 °.
John Martin. The Destruction of Sodom and Gommora. 1852 year
Before dawn, until a hot summer day began, many residents of Sodom and Gomorrah suddenly saw a fabulously beautiful performance: thousands of bright stars sparkled and shimmered in the sky. Astonished people froze in the streets, looking at a picture never seen before. And then red-hot "stars" began to fall on the heads of people, killing on the spot or getting into houses and causing fires. Few managed to escape. In addition to Sodom and Gomorrah, at least two more cities located near the Dead Sea were burned.
What did the ice tell?
Another confirmation of the cataclysm that befell our planet was found by glaciologists. By studying cores of millennial glaciers, scientists have found that almost 5200 years ago, a sudden cooling began on Earth. Snow suddenly fell in the middle of a warm summer. It was during this period that the blooming savannahs of the Sahara, where herds of artiodactyls grazed, quickly turned into a desert. Apparently, what happened was the so-called nuclear winter effect, when, as a result of powerful explosions, clouds of dust closed the Earth from the Sun for a long time. The culprit is the same asteroid that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The death of cities near the Dead Sea occurred, according to the calculations of Mark Hempsell, 5139 years ago. Independent studies by astronomers, archaeologists and glaciologists confirm each other.
Heavenly fire
Strabo, Cornelius Tacitus, Josephus Flavius wrote about the tragedy that befell the crowded flourishing cities. Here is what the ancient Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus wrote three thousand years after the catastrophe that destroyed the ancient cities: “Plains are spreading, which … were once fertile and covered with populous cities, and then burned out by heavenly fire. The remains of the cities are visible to this day, but since then the land has become as if charred and cannot bear fruit. Any plant, whether planted by the hand of a person or by itself, withers, turns black and crumbles to dust. As for the destruction of the once glorious and great cities, I am ready to believe that they were burned by heavenly fire."
And the ancient Greek historian and geographer Strabo wrote the following: “Here and there ruined dwellings come across. Therefore, one has to believe the legends that are widespread among local residents that there were once 13 inhabited cities here, of which the main city - Sodom - had about 60 stadia (more than 10.5 kilometers - Ed.) In a circle."
Biblical version
It was the Bible, or rather the Old Testament, that told the world about the terrible tragedy that occurred off the shores of the Dead Sea. But the fact that in the Old Testament the affected city is called Sodom (translated from Hebrew - "burning") and the name that he bore before the tragedy is not given, prompts some reflections. If the authors of the Bible did not give the name of the city before the disaster, it is possible that they simply did not know it. A new people came, who saw the terrible destruction and learned about what happened from the few survivors, and the self-name of the lost city did not appear in the people's memory of the newcomers.
In the Bible, tragedy is presented through the perception of Lot, the main character of the story. But everything that happened is described about 500 years after Lot's death. This means that his memories, if any, could be passed on orally from generation to generation. With each such transfer, something is lost, and something is added. And there are many reasons for this. Thus, the legend of Lot's petrified wife was created. The rock reminiscent of a human figure inspired someone to create the myth of a woman who disobeyed God and looked back at the burning city.
Hendrik Goltzius. Lot and His Daughters. 1616 year
In the holy book of Muslims, the Koran, there is a parable about the righteous man Lut and the city of Sadum, mired in sin. This parable completely, almost word for word, repeats the biblical story. But there is one difference. Lut's wife was from Sadum and led an unholy life like her fellow countrymen. The angels, who ordered Lut and his family to leave the city, also reported that his unrighteous wife would turn around and be punished with all the other sodomites.
Stones from the sky
Whatever legends may arise later, the bottom line is that if a strike from space hits a densely populated area of the Earth, there will be a lot of victims. Even such a relatively small pebble, about 20 meters in diameter, swept over Chelyabinsk, caused many problems - more than a thousand wounded, two people in intensive care.
The impression is that there is a sighting. 1908 - Tunguska meteorite, 1930 - Brazilian Tunguska, 2002 - Vitim bolide, 2013 - Chelyabinsk meteorite. The stones are very serious. Especially the first three. So what can you do? Sit and wait, where will the next one go? Moreover, the next one is on the way. In 2029, a weighty meteorite (330 meters in diameter) with the ominous name Apophis will fly near the Earth. Apophis is the ancient Egyptian destroyer god, a huge serpent that lives in a dark underworld and hunts the sun god Ra.
Apophis will fly not just close, but very close. 10 times closer than the Moon is from the Earth. But that is not all. Under the influence of the Earth's gravity, Apophis's orbit will change, and, again flying up to Earth in 2036, it will be even closer. Scientists reassure us, they say that the probability of a collision with the Earth is very small. Very small, but still there! It is estimated that the force of the impact of Apophis will exceed the impact of the Tunguska meteorite by 50 times. And the explosion of the Tunguska meteorite was 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
We must prepare for the meeting
The first shooting at a space body was carried out on July 4, 2005. NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft fired a special projectile (impactor) weighing 370 kilograms at Comet 9P / Tempel. When hit from the surface of the comet into space, about 10 thousand tons of rock were ejected. A crater with a diameter of 100 and a depth of 30 meters was formed. The force of the collision was equivalent to an explosion of five tons of TNT. True, the comet turned out to be massive enough to change its trajectory. The comet's dimensions are 7.5x5 kilometers. The asteroid would be thrown off to the side with such a blow.
They are engaged in the protection of our planet and in Europe. The European Space Agency is planning a test firing at a meteorite in the AIDA project in 2022. NASA is set to experiment with asteroid towing in 2021 with its new large spacecraft, Orion.
But the deviation of the meteorite's orbit is the second part of the planet's defense. The first part is the early detection of a threat sneaking up on us from the depths of space. There are many different programs for surveying the sky for the timely detection of dangerous "stones". In 2005, the US Congress passed a law that opens funding for programs to detect dangerous objects with a diameter of more than 140 meters in near-earth space and catalog them. By the way, Apophis was discovered thanks to one of these programs. Source: "Secrets of the XX century"
