The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Page 2 of 4

• 1. Book of Genesis
• 2. Asphalt towns
• 3. Liquefaction and destruction
• 4. Find out more
• Print entire article

Asphalt towns

Jonathan Tubb started by working out whether Sodom and Gomorrah actually existed. The whole area around the Dead Sea is now parched and barren, and the image of thriving towns is incongruous. But there was one point in the history of the region when a wetter climate meant the entire area could well have thrived - in the early Bronze Age, between 1800 BC and 2300 BC.

Tubb excavated a site called Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, north of the Dead Sea. He found evidence of an early olive oil factory, showing how sophisticated life had become, even in these ancient times. Tubb believes the early Bronze Age was the only time that towns matching the descriptions of Sodom and Gomorrah could have existed at all.

So were there big earthquakes in the early Bronze Age? According to American forensic anthropologist Professor Mike Finnegan, the answer is yes. He has examined the skeletons of three men discovered at the early Bronze Age site of Numeira near the Dead Sea. From the way their bones were broken, he concluded that they were crushed to death - possibly because an earthquake brought down a stone tower on top of them. Carbon dating put the date of the tower's beams at 2350 BC - the early Bronze Age.

To establish the magnitude of any earthquakes that may have occurred in the area, Professor Lynne Frostick consulted the Israeli geologist Shmuel Marco.

'Tubb believes the early Bronze Age is the only time that towns matching the description of Sodom and Gomorrah could have existed.'

Marco showed her a rock face containing layers of chalk and rock. In one place, there was a huge fault line caused by an ancient earthquake. By measuring how far an individual layer slipped, Marco could measure the size of the earthquake. The slippage was one metre and 75cm - meaning an earthquake measuring at least a six, on the Richter scale.

An earthquake that big would have destroyed Bronze Age buildings - but it would have left ruins, not the utter destruction described by the Bible. For Harris's idea to be plausible, the earthquake would have had to trigger a landslide. This is possible when there is loosely packed ground that contains lots of water. Shaken up by an earthquake, the water can rush to the surface, and the ground can turn to water - a phenomenon called liquefaction. On a slope, this can become a landslide.

Professor Frostick believed the ground around the Dead Sea was capable of liquefying. However, the towns had to be built on ground that contained lots of water, so they must have been right on the water's edge.

For Harris's theory to stand up, he needed to explain why towns like Sodom might have been built at the water's edge. He believes the answer is that some towns might have needed to be built as close as possible to a source of asphalt, a naturally occurring substance that was invaluable in ancient times. The Egyptians used asphalt to embalm their dead: their word moumiah, 'mummy' to us, means asphalt.

According to organic chemist Arie Niessenbaum, pure blocks of asphalt can be formed on the Dead Sea floor, and these can then float to the surface. This Dead Sea floating asphalt has been chemically fingerprinted and matched to asphalt contained in early Bronze Age artefacts found in Egypt. That means there was an early Bronze Age trade in asphalt from the Dead Sea to Egypt - and settlements may have existed where people collected it.

NextPrevious

Published: 01-04-2001