Cosmic Airburst May Have Wiped Out Part of the Middle East 3,700 Years Ago

[Judi Lynn]

By Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | November 28, 2018 06:32am ET

Some 3,700 years ago, a meteor or comet exploded over the Middle East, wiping out human life across a swath of land called Middle Ghor, north of the Dead Sea, say archaeologists who have found evidence of the cosmic airburst.

The airburst "in an instant, devastated approximately 500 km2 [about 200 square miles] immediately north of the Dead Sea, not only wiping out 100 percent of the [cities] and towns, but also stripping agricultural soils from once-fertile fields and covering the eastern Middle Ghor with a super-heated brine of Dead Sea anhydride salts pushed over the landscape by the event's frontal shock waves," the researchers wrote in the abstract for a paper that was presented at the American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting held in Denver Nov. 14 to 17. Anhydride salts are a mix of salt and sulfates.

"Based upon the archaeological evidence, it took at least 600 years to recover sufficiently from the soil destruction and contamination before civilization could again become established in the eastern Middle Ghor," they wrote. Among the places destroyed was Tall el-Hammam, an ancient city that covered 89 acres (36 hectares) of land. [Wipe Out: History's Most Mysterious Extinctions]

Unusual pottery
Among the evidence that the scientists uncovered for the airburst are 3,700-year-old pieces of pottery from Tall el-Hammam that have an unusual appearance. The surface of the pottery had been vitrified (turned to glass). The temperature was also so high that pieces of zircon within the pottery turned into gas — something that requires a temperature of more than 7,230 degrees Fahrenheit (4,000 degrees Celsius), said Phillip Silvia, a field archaeologist and supervisor with the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project. However, the heat, while powerful, did not last long enough to burn through entire pottery pieces, leaving parts of the pottery beneath the surface relatively unscathed.

More:
https://www.space.com/39251-on-this-day-in-space.html?utm_source=notification

[PubliusEnigma]

1. Just a song of Gomorrah, I wonder what they did there.

[d_r]

2. huh

I thought Sodom and Gamorrah were south of the Dead Sea, but I guess they were north. Makes sense how Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt.

[3Hotdogs]

6. O.K. Now I don't want any more of yiz making no fun of the stories in the Bible.

[Quemado]

3. OP's link does not go to story

Better link:

https://www.livescience.com/64179-ancient-cosmic-airburst-middle-east.html

[Ptah]

4. Thank You

[LakeSuperiorView]

7. What, it wasn't the fault of people that one hates?

Golly gee...

[Bearware]

8. Hmmm... This is suspiciously close in time and geography to when Thera blew up (some 3600 years ago)

Their close occurrence may be a coincidence but they are pretty close in time, space and potentially energy release . Maybe this event could have helped trigger Thera. One might expect evidence of later event at the location of the older event which would allow a more precise number for the time difference (if any) between the two events.

[gtar100]

9. Wow thanks, now I don't have to just worry about the big comets.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Chicken Little was right!

[Victor_c3]

10. Incredibly interesting to me

I read something a few years back about vitrified pottery and vitrified ancient stone structures. The author of the piece was using it as evidence of an ancient space war...

I don’t believe those sorts of ideas, but I still enjoy reading about them.

This explosion makes lots of sense.

[NNadir]

11. Trinity Southwest University is a Bible college, dedicated to demonstrating the "truth" of the...

...biblical accounts in Genesis.

It is not accredited by the Department of Education, but may be once that asshole Betsy DeVoss learns about its focus.

Trinity Southwest University

Here is a reference to a conference paper published on this topic: The Civilization-Ending 3.7KYrBP Event: Archaeological Data, Sample Analyses, and Biblical Implications

In this paper, the authors mostly reference themselves, with the exception of a few general archaeological references that are rather old.

Spectacularly missing are references to physical science of any kind.

How things like this get picked up in the popular "science" websites is disturbing, to me at least.

From my perspective this isn't science. It's religion, gone a little "woo-woo."