A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness’s account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.
The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal palace at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700 B.C. copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky.
He referred to the asteroid as a “white stone bowl approaching” and recorded it as it “vigorously swept along.”
Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123 B.C.
About half the symbols on the tablet have survived and half of those refer to the asteroid. The other symbols record the positions of clouds and constellations. In the past 150 years scientists have made five unsuccessful attempts to translate the tablet.
Mark Hempsell, one of the researchers from Bristol University who cracked the tablet’s code, said: “It’s a wonderful piece of observation, an absolutely perfect piece of science.”
He said the size and route of the asteroid meant that it was likely to have crashed into the Austrian Alps at Köfels. As it traveled close to the ground it would have left a trail of destruction from supersonic shock waves and then slammed into the Earth with a cataclysmic impact.
Debris consisting of up to two-thirds of the asteroid would have been hurled back along its route and a flash reaching temperatures of 400 Centigrade (752 Fahrenheit) would have been created, killing anyone in its path.
About one million sq kilometers (386,000 sq miles) would have been devastated and the impact would have been equivalent to more than 1,000 tons of TNT exploding.
Dr Hempsall said that at least 20 ancient myths record devastation of the type and on the scale of the asteroid’s impact, including the Old Testament tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the ancient Greek myth of how Phaeton, son of Helios, fell into the River Eridanus after losing control of his father’s sun chariot.
The findings of Dr. Hempsall and Alan Bond, of Reaction Engines Ltd., are published in a book, “A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels Impact Event.”
The researchers say that the asteroid’s impact would explain why at Köfels there is evidence of an ancient landslide 3 miles wide and a quarter of a mile thick.
Tale of devastation
“Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and he overthrew those cities and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities … [Abraham] looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.”
Source: Genesis 19:24-28
[Pictured above: An Assyrian planisphere, or star chart, from about 700 B.C. which may depict events recounted by Sumerians from around 3123 B.C.]
Written by: Lewis Smith for the
Source: Fox SciTech News
Boy if the Moses-psychotropic drug story inspired some angry comments…
To Arkle: No doubt. But hey, I’m a rabbi and if I can get over it surely most other folks can as well. Hard to argue in the face of hard science. But then again there is that old adage, the person with a strong feeling and conviction is never at the mercy of someone with a good argument…. or the facts. 😉
Hey, just because we now know *what* actually caused the ‘fire and brimstone’ doesn’t negate that it was God who caused it to happen. People always thing that when God does things it should be all supernatural and science-fictiony and what not. God uses natural objects and people to perform his works.
Sean. I agree I believe that God(supreme alien with advanced knowledge)used natural occurring things to do all of what we are now taught is/was miraculous doing. What happened to the angels?? The bible doesn’t say that they got out.When he wiped out the five cities he also destroyed Sumeria/Akkad and all of the surrounding tropical lands to the east due to the dust debris cloud. That is why we now have the desert there.
Well, if God is to be God, then like Harry S. Truman use to say, “The buck stops here” and ultimately, everything that ocurrs in the universe down to the nth degree must fall at the feet of the Supreme Being….. wonder if he/she has its multi-pass?
Mr. Sam where could one obtain a copy of the CD explaining the possible asteroid impact at, over or near Sodom and Gomorrah. As an aside since Melchizedek was high priest to God and King of Sodom/Salem was he also destroyed”? The account of the destruction was written approximately 1,000 years after the event according to some biblical scholars.
i see…. some rock here… it is a odd find. i believe when coming to earth as a meteorite it might off… melted into different shapes? so odd to think of what could of happend
‘Boy if the Moses-psychotropic drug story inspired some angry comments…’
Can’t honestly see why. I just can’t get worked up over the how when the why is the same as it always was. Science is basically confirming what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah actually happened. That ought to send a shiver down anyone’s spine, belief in God or no.