A giant space rock demolished an ancient Middle Eastern city and everyone in it – possibly inspiring the Biblical story of Sodom Christopher R. Moore, Archaeologist and Special Projects Director at the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program and South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina Mon, September 20, 2021, 5:48 AM As the inhabitants of an ancient Middle Eastern city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, they had no idea an unseen icy space rock was speeding toward them at about 38,000 mph (61,000 kph). Flashing through the atmosphere, the rock exploded in a massive fireball about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) above the ground. The blast was around 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The shocked city dwellers who stared at it were blinded instantly. Air temperatures rapidly rose above 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius). Clothing and wood immediately burst into flames. Swords, spears, mudbricks and pottery began to melt. Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire. ... A giant space rock demolished an ancient Middle Eastern city and everyone in it – possibly inspiring the Biblical story of Sodom (yahoo.com) Damned cool story. Apparently the mystery began with a discovered "destruction layer" five feet thick of ash and melted metal, mudbricks and pottery, something that not even a volcano could have done. It's doubly fascinating that the city of Jericho with its famously falling walls was apparently involved in the same event. The researchers used an online impact calculator -- the story links this one: https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/ -- to work out what the culprit could have been and came up with "a small asteroid similar to the one that knocked down 80 million trees in Tunguska, Russia in 1908." They went on to find evidence in the soil, and you can read all about it at the linked article.
That's not news. People like me have known about that for nearly 30 years or more. I'm pretty sure I've even mentioned it on this forum. Part of what's wrong with America is the headline for the story itself, specifically the phrase "...Biblical story of Sodom." The mytho-history of the Hebrew texts is not an original Hebrew work, so whoever wrote the headline outright lied by omission. For those who doubt, might I suggest you actually read the Hebrew texts for once in your life, and when I say "read the Hebrew texts" I don't mean thump the King Joke Vision, I mean read the only two authorized versions, namely Codex Leningradis (the "Stuttgart Bible") or Codex Aleppo, because the King Joke "translators" (snicker) lie and make stuff up and add it to the text, not to mention they translate most everything wrong. The Hebrew texts quite clearly say Terah was chief priest in the Akkadian city of Ur for the deity El Shaddai, whose Sumerian name was Ninurta. Priestly positions were hereditary so his son Abram/Abraham was a priest, too, but not his half sister wife Serai/Sarah (same father different mother.) Priests knew how to read and write and they wrote on clay tablets, which Abram/Abraham brought with him to Canaan after he sojourned in Haran. In case some of you don't get it, Haran is a city in the Hurrian Kingdom that was the principal city for the deity called Teshub in the Hurrian language and was Ninurta/El Shaddai in the Sumerian/Akkadian languages. It's no different than El, Allah, God or Gott which is "God" in four different languages. In the original Sumerian story written 7,000 years ago, Nabu, a son of the deity Marduk, has his armies parked in Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities of the plain poised to attack. His armies get destroyed along with Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. They attributed the destruction to Ninurta/El Shaddai/Teshub and to Nergal. There are still turds that refer to Nergal as Lord of the Underworld, ie "Hell" even though in 1996, a compromise was reached to translate it as Lord of the Netherworld since the Greeks screwed up everything and screwed us over royally with their empirical fantasy nonsense. Yeah, everyone before the Greeks knew Earth was a sphere and orbited the Sun. But for the unintelligent Greeks trying to translate Sumerian/Akkadian texts, Earth was flat (and the center of the Universe) and there's no equator so Nergal cannot live down under [the equator] in his domain in southern Africa, he must live under the flat Earth, and that's how "Hell" was invented. The second version of the story was written by the Akkadians, and Nergal's name is Erra in Akkadian, hence "Erra and the Howling Wind" describing the annihilation of Nabu's armies in Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain. Subsequent versions by the Mari, Nuzi, Mitanni, Eblaites, Sushites, Elamites, Kushites, et al got it right. Even the Assyrians got it right. It was the Hebrews who changed it into a morality play. They redacted/edited all the texts they copied and whoever did had schizo-affective disorder and was OCD to boot. If you want to see evidence of the clay tablets Abram/Abraham brought from Ur, just read the Hebrew texts ou can see the evidence that those clay tablets existed in Genesis. Since clay tablets were not paginated (i.e. numbered), lines were repeated (catch-lines) to show continuity from one tablet to the next. The following is evidence that the first 36 chapters in Genesis were recorded on clay tablets: Tablet #1 1:1 God created the heavens and the earth. 2:4 When they were created Tablet #2 5:2 When they were created -- catch-line from #1 6:10 Shem, Ham, and Japheth Tablet #3 10:1 Shem, Ham, and Japheth -- catch-line from #2 10:32 After the Flood Tablet #4 11:10 After the Flood -- catch-line from #3 11:26 Abram, Nahor, and Haran Tablet #5 11:27 Abram, Nahor, and Haran -- catch-line from #4 25:12 Abraham’s son Tablet #6 25:19 Abraham’s son -- catch-line from #5 36:1 Who is Edom Tablet #7 36:8 Who is Edom -- catch-line from #6 36:9 Father Edom Tablet #8 36:43 Father Edom -- catch-line from #7 Someone seems to have --- at least initially -- a great interest in Edom and the Edomites. What happened? Edom is Esau's kingdom. His brother Jacob lived to the west. Now you know the rest of that story. Mesopotamian cosmogony was written on 7 clay tablets and referred to as the "7 Tablets of Creation." For the New Year's celebration, which lasted 7 days -- the last day of the calendar, a 5 day intercalated period, and the 1st day of the New Year -- priests would climb to the tops of ziggurats and read one tablet each day for the 7 day festival. 6 of the tablets define acts of "creation" and the 7th extols the virtues of the deities. Abram/Abraham would have climbed the ziggurat with his father Terah and read from the tablets while people gathered below to listen and some would even dress up and act out the parts of the deities just like people dress up and act out the parts of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The not-too-bright Hebrews corrupted reading one of the 7 tablets of creation each day into "god created the earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th." Why would the Hebrews redact/edit texts? Anyone remember NBC? NBC said the 9-1-1 call by George Zimmerman went like this: “He looks like he’s up to no good, he looks black.” The real 9-1-1 call went like this: Dispatcher: Sanford Police Department. Zimmerman: Hey we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there’s a real suspicious guy, uh, it’s Retreat View Circle, um, the best address I can give you is 111 Retreat View Circle. This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about. Dispatcher: OK, and this guy is he white, black, or Hispanic? Zimmerman: He looks black. Why would NBC outright lie? For political and social reasons. The Hebrews edited text for the same reasons.
There is no 'lie' in the headline or the article about that. It is simply a reference that the unwashed masses will understand and a bit of shorthand, since the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is one of the stories of the Bible and may be derived from this or some other historical event, no matter whether there was an earlier Sumerian or Akkadian story from which it may have been more directly derived. It is immaterial to the real story here and an odd tangent for this thread. This is cool and interesting information that you're offering, but it's really off-topic.
Sorry, not buying it at all. Yet. In fact, the very fact that this is a hypothesis from an archaeologist makes me doubt it even more. Such a speculation is way outside his area of expertise. Now, if they bring in some geologists and they can confirm that the age of the shocked quartz match the event, then they might indeed have something. But I have read several articles about this, and they do not all seem to agree with each other. Most are saying that the presence of "shocked quartz" is an indication that this is a fact. Yet, I have yet to find any references to the discovery of a meteor crater. And other articles talk about this being an air burst, like Tunguska or Chelyabinsk. But the problem is, to have shocked quartz you need an impact event, not an air burst. So until we can get geologists to tell us when this layer of shocked quartz was made and the size of the impact crater, I am dismissing this. Just as I dismissed it a year ago when I first heard this theory (this is not even new, Moore first published this at least as far back as May 2020). And there has nothing new that has been added since that earlier report was released. Show me the crater, let the geologists determine the age, and what layers are above and below which layers. And get the stories straight. Because I did quite a bit of research, and this is the only time I have ever found "air burst" and "shocked quartz" in the same claim. The accepted belief of geologists is that this requires an actual impact event. That is why you find it in meteor impacts all over the globe, but not at the air burst events (like the two I already mentioned). If anything, the lack of a crater easily identified makes me think of the Wetumpka Impact Crater, in Alabama. Around 85 million years old, but completely unrecognized as a "crater" until 1969 when geological mapping showed that something had happened to the region. And not confirmed until 1998 when shocked quartz was finally located deep below the surface. International recognition was not given until 2002. SO show me the crater, and the age of this impact event. Until then, I am just not buying it. Especially as it is an archaeologist claiming shocked quartz and an air burst go together.
The hypothesis is that it exploded in the air, like the Tungusta meteor, which would not leave any impact crater.
I am aware of this. But in doing so, it would also not leave behind any shocked quartz. That requires a ground impact. And much of the claim is that the shocked quartz found proves there was a meteor. As I said, the two just do not go together. Which is why I want to see a geological report that gives the age of whatever crater there is there. I bet it is much older than the archaeological site. And since there is none obvious, it is likely tens or hundreds of millions of years old.
It is not so much "click bait", as sensationalizing a theory. Now I pay close attention to all three areas of science this revolves around. Archaeology, geology, and astronomy. In fact, ironically earlier this morning I was watching a video about Eugene Shoemaker and his connecting shocked quartz and meteor impacts. He has always fascinated me, as his discovery of shocked quartz helped to confirm a great many suspected meteor impacts were actually that and not geologic in nature. And I also studied the Tunguska event Even shouting at the screen in "Ghostbusters" when they said it was in 1909, and I knew it was in 1908. Which is why a year ago I shrugged this off, as have many others. They just do not go together, an air burst and shocked quartz. If I have to guess, what you have is an incredibly ancient crater (likely 100 MYA+ like the one in Alabama), located on this place where the city rose. And the two incidents are completely unrelated.
Read the studies. The first was published around 1976, if I recall. That was based on archeological research published a few years earlier. Understand that at that time, they were exploring methods of dating other than Carbon-dating. The soil samples and such that were analyzed contained anomalies, meaning there were minerals, particles and/or chemical elements that should not have been there because they are not native to the region. Subsequent studies showed high levels of daughter products from U-235 decay, as well as heat-stressed and stress-born particles. A heat-stressed particle is one that has undergone significant heating, and I don't mean kiln or blast-furnace. We're talking temperatures that approach or exceed 1 Million °F. Stress-born particles are formed under tremendous heat/pressure, and again we're talking 1 Million °F or more. That could only be achieved by an impact event, or an explosive atmospheric event.
It wouldn't be immaterial if you were aware of the Sumerian Mystery. As bizarre as it may sound, Sodom and Gomorrah somehow caused the abandonment of Sumer. We know roughly the time of day everyone in Sumer fled. And everyone fled. Sumerians literally jumped up, ran out the door and didn't stop running for a very long time. And they never came back. Not ever. The reason we know so much about them is because they jumped up and ran so fast they left food cooking in clay pots on their hearths. Archeologists found home after home with clay pots full of food. The Sumerians had a penchant for leeks, and apparently enjoyed some kind of leek soup/stew. They left all their clothes in their homes along with jewelry and other personal effects. By the time Alexander the Great arrives there ~335 BCE, it's nothing but dirt mounds dotting the landscape, and he actually mentions that. Later, circa 900 CE when various Arab tribes migrated there, they called those dirt mounds "Tells." A few decades ago when Sumer was rediscovered and archeologists were digging there, the Arabs refused to help them. They said the Tells were inhabited by ghosts and if a ghost touched you, you would get sick and die. Abandoning cities is nothing new. Ugarit was abandoned. That's proof the Exodus never happened. Ugarit was abandoned because it got invaded and everyone was killed, taken as slaves or fled. Classical Biblical Hebrew is the Ugaritic dialect of Aramaic without the case-endings, you know, nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, instrumental, locative, vocative, etc. Did Ugartic ghosts teach the Hebrews their language? Nope. There was no Exodus. The Hebrews always lived in Canaan. The reason many passages in the Hebrew texts are now translated correctly is because the Hebrews copied the Psalms and other stories from the Ugarits. They found that out a few years back doing excavations in Ugarit. Jericho was abandoned. A lot. It was a trading post circa 9,500 BCE. There's a big fresco of a crab on one of the walls of a building. You know, a crab, for the Age of Cancer (we're in the Age of Pisces.) It was rebuilt and abandoned over and over. In fact, it had been abandoned for at least a century when the Hebrews claimed to have destroyed it, except it wasn't destroyed. The walls are just fine. And, no, it doesn't matter if you take the early or late date of the Exodus. But, abandoning an entire kingdom, that's unprecedented. Something must have happened and it happened at the same time Sodom and Gomorrah did. Where did the Sumerians go? The Balkans. They are the Thracians, Dacians and Illyracians. Want proof? I give you Sarmezigetusa. I can see the Sumerian words. Let's write it like Sumerian: sar.me.zi.ge.tus.a If we apply Grimm's Law for vocalic/fricative shifts, then: sar.me.zi.ge.suz.a "sar" = great year (3,600 years) or circle "me" = knowledge "zi" = Heaven "ge" = Earth "suz" = bond "a" = denotes genitive case construction "Circle knowledge Heaven Earth bond of" We would say "The Circle of Knowledge Bonding Heaven and Earth" Sarmezigetusa is a solar/lunar observatory, like Stone Henge only made of wood. Get it? It was a big circle ringed with wooden poles and sighting poles for Saros cycles (Moon phases/eclipses), solstices, rising/setting times for planets, etc. I say kai for horse and kal for horses. Romanian is 10% Dacian, 40% Latin and 50% Slavic. We count Slavic-style for teen numbers and Latin-style for 20 and above. It's no surprise to me that the name of the city where the Sumerian royal horse stables were is prefixed with "kal." Dacian has a lot of Sumerian loan-words and cognates, you know, like "brother" in Sanskrit is bhrata, phrater in Greek, frater in Latin, broþar in Gothic, bruder in Germanic. I mention that as an example of Grimm's Law regarding vocalic/fricative shifts. And also I mention it to consider the possibility that "tus" is not "suz" but rather "du" which would be "complete" or the The Complete Circle of Knowledge Bonding Heaven & Earth." Take your pick. If you read the translation of Erra and the Howling Wind in the Journal of the Ancient Near East, it says the being Shamash was helping Sumerians escape after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and somehow injured his leg and was lame the rest of his life. How can a god become lame? Well, Shamash is the Sun god according to x-tians. According to the Sumerians, and they would be the authority on this matter, Shamash was just a guy. Somehow different from humans to be sure, but a mortal being nonetheless. The reason I mentioned that is because this "howling wind" drifted from the area of Sodom and Gomorrah over Sumer and that's why Sumer was abandoned. No, it doesn't. Shocked quartz were observed in nuclear weapons tests. Neither a warhead nor an asteroid have to actually touch the ground, but the blast and heat waves do.
Are you aware of the 18 mile wide crater on the floor of the Indian Ocean (Burkle crater) that created 600 foot high chevrons on Madagascar and Australia possibly the reason of the flood stories in the Bible and other religions?
I have, they are not consistent. And you say you heard about this 45 years ago. Yet I have never heard of any geological report about the critical things. Strata analysis, size and age of crater, things like that. Because right now, as I said things just do not add up. Sounds like the same thing others have been saying. Throwing around a bunch of crap, hoping that something sticks. And Uranium is an extremely rare element to be found in meteors. And yes, if there is indeed shocked quartz that is proof of an impact event. But this report is trying hard to say it was an air burst. And no report at all on a crater. As I said, you can not have an air burst and shocked quartz. They just do not go together. The studies as given right nor are entirely from an archaeological standpoint, in finding artifacts that are not normal. Now how about a geologist to actually interpret them?
Oh, I am aware of this. But here is the thing. That was always in a subsurface test, not an atmospheric one. You see, here is the thing. As I already said, I have been reading the works of Eugene Shoemaker, and apparently know a lot more about him and his works than you do. You see, he was a geologist brought in to look over the impact of subsurface nuclear blasts at Yucca Flat in the 1950's., and realized the shocked quartz he found there was the same as what he had previously seen in Arizona at Berringer Crater. But such quartz does not appear at the site of atmospheric detonations or surface detonations, just subsurface ones. You are confusing shocked quartz with trinitite I guess. They are not the same thing. And the heat and blast wave alone are not enough to create shocked quartz. It requires an impact event, or an underground nuclear explosion, where the entire force is contained and not at least half vented into the atmosphere instead of only into the surrounding rocks. You know there are a lot of books and videos, both by and about Dr. Shoemaker. National Geographic made a great one decades ago before his death, just after the Shoemaker-Levey 9 Comet stuck Jupiter. And it goes into quite a bit of detail about his theories, his background, and his linking shocked quartz with impact events. Including the Nordlinger Ries in Germany. Which he helped prove was an impact and not volcanic in nature when he saw the cathedral in the town, and realized it was built out of shocked quartz stones. Now, show my a report that shows shocked quartz from atmospheric testing. I would love to see it.
OK, but one more word on Sodom and Gomorrah as to how these stories get twisted over time. Even in OUR time, the interpretations of that story have been just plain NUTTY. Any suggestion that the ancients would have done better than we have done in modern times hits me as hugely presumptive.
