Biblical city of Sodom ‘found in Jordan’

Steven Collins, archaeologist from the university, said, “We know very little about the Bronze Age in the south of the Jordan River Valley”.

Collins says in comparison to the remnants of other ancient cities in the region, Tall el-Hammam is likely the best candidate for the lost city of Sodom, which God firebombed in the Book of Genesis for its astonishing breaking of God’s law.

There are also associated gates, towers, at least one roadway and plazas. “What we’ve got on our hands is a major city-state that was, for all practical purposes, unknown to scholars before we started our project”.

The team is convinced it uncovered the legendary city of Sodom because of evidence suggesting the huge city straddled several major Bronze Age trade routes, reports the Express.

“Most archaeological maps of the area were blank”.

The ancient Biblical “city of sin”, Sodom, may have been discovered by a team of archaeologists working on a site in Jordan.

In the Bible, Sodom was said to have been destroyed by God after his angels failed to find righteous men within its walls.

After 10 years of excavations led by Trinity Southwestern University expert Steven Collins, large parts of the structure has been unearthed, the New Historian reported.

Collins says that to find the city that God burned because of the sins of its residents, the team searched for the largest city on eastern Kikkar which existed during the Middle Bronze Age, the time when Abraham and Lot, his nephew, lived.

Furthermore he said that when they explored the area, Tall el-Hammam was an obvious choice because it was five to 10 times bigger than the other cities of Bronze Age across the region, even the ones found beyond Jordan. They quoted Collins as saying the discovery is “monstrous” compared to other settlements from that period in the region.

After about 700 years of desertion, the city was repopulated, according to researchers, based on evidence of remains of monuments from the Iron Age, including a new wall around the city, houses and other buildings such as something believed to have been a religious center.

He told Popular Archaeology that it meets “every criterion” of Sodom – which, according to the Old Testament, was destroyed by fire and brimstone along with its neighbour, Gomorrah.

Both cities have been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality. These building were all found in the so-called upper city, while the lower city yielded a large monumental complex.

Dr Collins said the city was abandoned at the end of the Bronze Age, perhaps following an natural disaster, but other experts have suggested an asteroid may have been to blame.

Life in the city appears to have come to a sudden halt, and “Sodom” appears to have been abandoned for 700 years.