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Scientists have found evidence of a cosmic airburst event around 1650 BCE that devastated the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam in the southern Jordan Valley, causing extreme temperatures and depositing high concentrations of salt. This event, potentially inspiring the biblical tales of Sodom and Jericho’s destruction, might have also led to a mass abandonment of cities in the region during the “Late Bronze Age Gap.”In the Middle Bronze Age (about 3,600 years ago or roughly 1650 BCE), the city of Tall el-Hammam was ascendant. Located on high ground in the southern Jordan Valley, northeast of the Dead Sea, the settlement...

An archaeologist claimed in an interview published in late June that he has identified the ancient Biblical site where Sodom once stood. Trinity Southwest University’s Dean of Archaeology Steven Collins told host of the Rosenberg Report, Joel C. Rosenberg, that he and his team believe the Tell el-Hammam site in Jordan appears to have many of the markers of Sodom. The site is reportedly scattered with Bronze-age remains that appear to have been melted in a “flash heat” situation, matching the Biblical account of how Sodom burned to the ground. “As soon as we get a few centimeters into that...

Many people are familiar with the account in the biblical Book of Genesis about the two sin-filled cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their cataclysmic destruction. Yet many in this modern, scientific age struggle — or outright refuse — to accept that the cities ever really existed, much less that God wiped them out with fire from heaven. After all, to believe Genesis would be to accept that God is real, the Bible is true, and that God really does bring judgment against individuals, cities, and even whole nations if they stubbornly reject God and flagrantly disobey His commands. In...

A modern verification of an ancient event and tangible evidence of an ancient person. And once again, biblical history is verified.Our team of thinkers and writers at the Colson Center are archaeology nerds. Seriously, we get giddy whenever another archaeological discovery sheds light on biblical narratives or confirms their historical accuracy. And even more fun, it seems to happen all the time these days.Keep in mind that biblical faith is grounded in historical events, events to which the Bible testifies. This is one of the factors that sets the Bible apart from other religious texts. Recently, two announcements made illustrate...

(RNS) — What everyone agrees on is that something unusual happened at Tall el-Hammam, an ancient settlement near the Dead Sea.In a layer of ancient earth, archaeologists claim to have found evidence of an apocalyptic event: Melted rooftops. Disintegrated pottery. Unusual patterns in the rock formations that can be associated with intense heat. For another three to six centuries after 1650 B.C., the settlement's 100 acres lay fallow.But when Steven Collins, the principal archaeologist at Tall el-Hammam, considered the scientists' evidence in an article that ran last year in the respected scientific journal Nature, he claimed that the incineration matched...

Archeologists in Burnt City announced unprecedented discovery of an artificial eyeball, dated to 4800 years ago, in this historic site... [D}irector of Burnt City archeology excavation team, Mansour Sajadi, said that this eyeball belongs to a sturdy woman who was between 25 to 30 years of age at the time of death. Skeletal remains of the woman were found in grave number 6705 of Burnt City's cemetery. Regarding the material used to make this artificial eyeball, Sajadi said: "The material this artificial eyeball is made of has not yet been determined and will be assessed through later testing. However, at...

December 20, 2006 4800-Year-Old Artificial Eyeball From the announcement by the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, an educational and research group out of UK: Archaeologists in Burnt City announced unprecedented discovery of an artificial eyeball, dated to 4800 years ago, in this historic site. Announcing this news, director of Burnt City archaeology excavation team, Mansur Sajadi, said that this eyeball belongs to a sturdy woman who was between 25 to 30 years of age at the time of death. Skeletal remains of the woman were found in grave number 6705 of Burnt City's cemetery. Regarding the material used to make...

The reconstructed version of the 5,000-year-old skeleton was unveiled during a ceremony attended by head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization Hamid Baqaei and Iran's ambassador to Italy Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Hosseini. The woman, whose face has been reconstructed by a group of Iranian and Italian researchers, is famous for carrying the first prosthesis to have been used by man, ISNA reported. This is a great scientific achievement which shows that Persians used innovative medical equipment 5,000 years ago, Baqaei said during the opening ceremony of the exhibition. The unique discovery was the result of excavations in the Burnt...

Archeological studies have found that the female inhabitants of Iran's ancient site of Burnt City outlived the male members of their community. According to head of the Burnt City archeology team Farzad Forouzanfar, men died between the ages of 35 to 45, while women lived well into their 80s. Forouzanfar said that the area witnessed considerable population drops and that "the number of the female inhabitants of the area was more than the males." "The team also found that the remains of nearly 30,000 burials exist in Burnt City," he added. Demographical studies also showed that over 6,000 people lived...

The paper uses newly examined inscriptions from a set of ancient silver beakers to propose a method for reading the symbols that make up Linear Elamite... 5,000 years ago, in the thriving city of Susa, on the fringe of the great Mesopotamian plain and the edge of the vast Iranian plateau that rises to the east...was at the heart of an urban society spanning much of what is today southwestern Iran. The city’s western neighbors, the Sumerians, dubbed its residents the Elamites. French archaeologists digging in Susa at the turn of the 20th century uncovered evidence of a writing system...

The world's oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics. This international research project is already casting light on a lost bronze age middle eastern society where enslaved workers lived on rations close to the starvation level... Dr Dahl's secret weapon is being able to see this writing more clearly than ever before... a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light... It's being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a...

Archaeologists have Discovered the World's Oldest Inscription in Jiroft 05 November 2007 LONDON, (CAIS) -- Archaeologists have discovered the world's most ancient inscription in the Iranian city of Jiroft, near the Halil Roud historical site. "The inscription, discovered in a palace, was carved on a baked mud-brick whose lower left corner has only remained,” explained Professor Yousof Majid-Zadeh, head of the Jiroft excavation team. “The only ancient inscriptions known to experts before the Jiroft discovery were cuneiform and hieroglyph,” said Majid Zadeh, adding that,”the new-found inscription is formed by geometric shapes and no linguist around the world has been able...

In a ruling that could affect other countries' attempts to secure the return of antiquities, Britain's High Court rejected Iran's claim that it owned the artifacts... Lawyers acting for Iran said the treasures were among thousands of pieces stolen by looters after floods washed away the topsoil and exposed the ancient city of Jiroft in 2001. Senior judge Charles Gray said Iran had failed to prove its legal ownership of the jars, cups and other items but gave permission for his ruling to be challenged at the appeal court... The gallery's London lawyers, Lane & Partners, said the antiquities were...

Jiroft is lost link of chain of civilization: Majidzadeh TEHRAN, Jan. 12 (MNA) -- Iranian archaeologist Yusef Majidzadeh believes that Jiroft is the lost link of the chain of civilization and says it has such a significant civilization that he would be proud to be named an honorary citizen of the ancient site. In a seminar entitled “Jiroft, the Cradle of Oriental Civilization” held in Kerman on Thursday, he said, “The history of civilization in Jiroft dates back to 2700 BC and the third millennium civilization is the lost link of the chain of civilization which archaeologists have long sought....

Shrouded 5000-year-old child unearthed in southeastern Iran TEHRAN, Dec. 19 (MNA) -- The skeleton of a 5000-year-old child wrapped in a winding sheet was discovered at the foot of a wall in the Taleb Khan Mound, which is located near the Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchestan Province. “The skeleton was discovered in a room of a house, while remnants of a white cloth were found around it. The cloth shows that the child had been shrouded before burial,” Mehdi Miri, the director of the archaeological team working at the site, said on Tuesday. “It was common for children to be buried...

Two tombs carved out of rock were recently discovered at the Qal'eh Kuchak mound by the team of archaeologists working at the Jiroft ancient site. The team began the fifth phase of excavations of Jiroft, which is located in the Halil-Rud River cultural area, in late October. Due to their magnificent structure, the archaeologists believe they may be the tombs of kings who ruled the region. "The ancient inhabitants of the region constructed a place like an orthogonal room measuring 2.5x2.5 meters. The place has some stairs leading to two cave-like tombs," team director Yusef Majidzadeh told the Persian service...

Ancient Metal Relics Discovered in Jiroft Jul 19, 2006 The police department of Jiroft succeeded in confiscating 41 metal relics belonging to the pre-historic and historic periods. The most ancient one is a Riton belonging to the third millennium BC. Riton is a kind of goblet with the head of an animal, usually in the shape of a lion, horse, ibex, or winged lion. "The police department of Jiroft found 41 bronze, copper, and silver relics. The most ancient one is a Riton with the head of a humped cow belonging to some 5000 years ago," said Nader Soleimani, archeologist...

Iran-Cave MP from Jiroft, Ali Zadsar here Wednesday said that a village whose residents are cavemen has been discovered at the heights of the city of Jiroft near Anbarabad in the southeastern province of Kerman. Speaking on the sidelines of Majlis open session, he said that a village was discovered 120 kms from the town of Anbarabad in the winter of 2005. He added that the residents of the newly-discovered village put on no clothes and feed on leaves. Zadsar said, "The village, called Pid-Nekoupieh, is situated in the mountain and the 200 people who live there have never left...

New Discoveries in Jiroft May Change History of Civilization Jan 26, 2006 Latest archeological excavations in Jiroft, known as the hidden paradise of world archeologists, resulted in the discovery of a bronze statue depicting the head of goat which dates back to the third millennium BC. This statue was found in the historical cemetery of Jirof where recent excavations in the lower layers of this cemetery revealed that the history of the Halil Rud region dates back to the fourth millennium BC, a time that goes well beyond the age of civilization in Mesopotamia "One of the reasons the archeologists...

First Elamite inscription discovered near Bandar Abbas Tehran Times Culture Desk TEHRAN -- The archaeologists working at an ancient site near Bandar Abbas recently discovered a fragment of an inscription which seems to be written in Elamite cuneiform, the Persian service of CHN reported on Tuesday. The director of the team said that the discovery was made in a cemetery from the Qajar era near Sarkhun village, adding that the archaeologists estimate that it dates back to about 1500 BC, which was the middle Elamite era. The inscription is one of the most important and rare artifacts discovered in Hormozgan...