The Geography and History of Tell el-Hammam (Sodom)

When archaeologists looked out over excavations of the ruined city of Tell El-Hammam, they could see a dark, roughly 5-foot-thick (1.5 m) jumbled layer of charcoal, ash, melted mud bricks and melted pottery. It was obvious that an intense firestorm had destroyed this city long ago. No one was exactly sure what had happened, but that layer wasn’t caused by a volcano, earthquake or warfare. None of them are capable of melting metal, mud bricks and pottery.

The Tell el-Hammam Excavation Project (TeHEP) is a joint venture between Trinity Southwest University (TSU) in Albuquerque, NM, and the Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In January and February 2013, we completed our eighth dig season. To cut to the chase, we believe that Tell el-Hammam is the site of biblical Sodom, and the information that we are gaining with each dig season adds to our conviction.

My purpose in writing this is to provide supplemental information and alternate views to the “Tell el Hammam” article that was posted on the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies web site in July 2013. While I am not an official spokesman for TeHEP, I have the permission of Dig Director Dr. Steven Collins, PhD, to present a summary of information that has already been published on either TeHEP’s or TSU’s web sites. For more information, see www.tallelhammam.com and www.trinitysouthwest.com.

Tell el-Hammam is located approximately 12 km northeast of the Dead Sea on the eastern side of the Kikkar, the circular plain of the southern Jordan Valley, directly across from Jericho. (The Google Earth coordinates for Tell el-Hammam are 31.839125° Lat and 35.672028° Long.) The occupation mound of Tell el-Hammam measures about 1,000 meters long by 600 meters wide and is divided into “upper” and “lower” tells, with the upper tell being about 35 m higher than the lower. The upper tell is long and narrow, with very steep sides. The lower tell is broad and flat and sits 25-50 meters above the surrounding plain.

Excavations to date have revealed that Tell el-Hammam has a continuous occupation history that goes back to at least the Chalcolithic Period (ca. 4500 BCE) and extends to or near the end of the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 1700 BCE). This date range has been firmly established through the pottery record and is confirmed by the architectural styles of the building foundations that have been exposed thus far.

There was an occupational hiatus during the entire Late Bronze Age that lasted into if not through Iron Age 1, a period of 600-700 years. A fortress was constructed on the upper tell and additional occupation of the lower tell occurred during Iron Age 2. Occupation of Tell el-Hammam continued at a minimal (compared to its peak in the Middle Bronze Age) level into the Roman Period. The Romans even built a bath house near the hot spring that sits in the saddle between the upper and lower tells.

Tell el-Hammam was eventually abandoned and forgotten. In 1967, the location of Tell el-Hammam was recognized for its strategic importance, and defensive artillery emplacements were cut along the entire length of the upper tell. Although ancient foundation walls were observed as bulldozers cut the trenches, no interest in pursuing an excavation of the site ensued. A minor, spot-excavation of the lower tell was conducted in the 1990s.

The first season of excavation under the Tell el-Hammam Excavation Project was conducted in 2006 under the direction of Dr. Steven Collins and the Jordanian Department of Antiquities. For more information, see Discovering the City of Sodom. [1]

In summary, this is what we now know about the history of Tell el-Hammam up to Iron Age 2. Tell el-Hammam sits at a strategic crossroad of the ancient trade routes. The earliest confirmed occupation of the site goes back to the Chalcolithic Period (CP), ca. 4500 BCE. At that time, Tell el-Hammam sat between two wadis that flowed year round. There were also seven springs -- six “sweet” and one mineral hot spring -- that supplied water to the tell and surrounding villages.

There is a marked cultural discontinuity throughout the Levant between the end of the CP and the Early Bronze Age (EB), ca. 3500 BCE. EB1 was a “dry” period that is characterized by few villages (not fortified or walled), nomadism, and an agrarian economy. Tell el-Hammam, however, thrived due to its reliable sources of water.

EB2 marks the beginning of a “wet” period, ca. 3000 BCE, and is characterized by a rise in urbanization (walled and fortified cities), increased scale of agriculture, and centralized government. The first defensive rampart wall was constructed to surround Tell el-Hammam, i.e., the city. A massive earthquake event ca. 2700 BCE during the transition from EB2 to EB3. This resulted in a major rebuilding and strengthening of the EB fortification wall around the city that can be seen in the architecture that has been excavated.

The Intermediate Bronze Age (IB), ca. 2350 BCE, marks the beginning of another dry period and another cultural discontinuity throughout the Levant. This discontinuity manifested itself through the abandonment of most fortified cities and a return to semi-nomadism. Once again, however, Tell el-Hammam thrived and even expanded.

Tell el-Hammam reached its peak of hegemony and size during the Middle Bronze Age (MB), which began ca. 2000 BCE. MB1 was another wet period that encouraged the growth of urban areas. This period also saw the introduction of the fast potter’s wheel and a corresponding change in the forms of pottery. The fortification walls of Tell el-Hammam underwent another major expansion, including the construction of a new monumental gate structure befitting the stature of what had now become the controlling city of the largest known city-state complex in the Levant at that time.

Toward the end of MB1, the climate began to dry out again. By the beginning of MB2, ca. 1800 BCE, famine was spreading through the Levant, but it lasted only about 50-75 years. Once again, Tell el-Hammam continued to thrive with its well-watered surrounding plains, as described in Genesis 13:10. Toward the end of MB2, civilization throughout the Kikkar came to an abrupt end.

The wide-spread destruction encompassed Tell el-Hammam, Tell Kefrein (1 km NW of Tell el-Hammam), Tell Nimrin (another 4 km to the NW), Tells Mustah and Bleibel (“twin” tells that straddle the wadi just north of Tell Nimrin), Tell Iktanu (<1 km S of Tell el-Hammam), and every one of the smaller tells on the eastern side of the Kikkar that was occupied at that time. Even Tell Jericho on the western side of the Kikkar was destroyed at that time.

We are convinced, but not yet ready to discuss the details (this will be the subject of my doctoral dissertation), that this civilization-ending catastrophic event was the result of an air burst explosion, probably from a comet or comet fragment since there is no crater anywhere in the area to suggest a meteor. The archaeological evidence that we are finding strongly points to this type of a destructive event.

Tell Jericho recovered within 200-300 years of the destruction event. The sites on the eastern side of the Kikkar remained uninhabited throughout the Late Bronze Age (LB) into the Iron Age (IA). It was not until ca. 1000 BCE (IA2, possibly late IA1) that civilization returned to Hamman, Iktanu, Nimrin, Rama, Bleibel, and Mustah. (None of these sites contain LB pottery. There are only traces of IA1 pottery. The pottery witness resumes with IA2.)

This, then, is the history of Tell el-Hammam prior to 1000 BCE as we know it from the archaeological evidence.

Dig Director Dr. Steven Collins and the majority of the volunteer dig team, including myself, believe that Tell el-Hammam is biblical Sodom. Having restated my conviction, I need to mention another point which I feel is crucial to the discussion of Tell el-Hammam as Sodom. The vast majority of narratives in the Old Testament portion of the Bible are based in real geography. Virtually nothing happens in any narrative without first stating the specifics of place, often in amazing detail. Regardless of what you may believe about the people in these narratives (myth, legend or real), the geography is very real and can be verified through examination of the locations described. Now, on to Sodom!

The first mention of Sodom (along with Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim) appears in Genesis 10:19 in a context describing the borders of Canaan. The chronological context of this passage is the Early Bronze Age, ca. 3600-2350 BCE, thus indicating that these cities were up and functional during that time. It should also be noted from the naming of these cities that only Sodom is ever mentioned by itself.

Gomorrah is always paired with Sodom, and Zeboiim is always paired with Admah. It is generally assumed, therefore, that Sodom and Gomorrah are the two primary cities of a city-state complex as are Admah and Zeboiim. The Sodom-Gomorrah city-state complex is larger because it is always mentioned first, and Sodom is the largest of the cities because it alone is ever mentioned separately.

Tell el-Hammam is the largest tell, by far, in the area. It is, by virtue of its size and location (more on that later), the most viable candidate site for Sodom. Tell Nimrin, to the north of Tell el-Hammam, is significantly smaller, yet it is the second largest tell in the area. It is considered to be the best candidate for Admah.

Tells Bleibel and Musta are smaller, nearly identical tells that straddle the wadi that leads up toward Gilead. Since Zeboiim is plural in Hebrew, we believe that it refers to the twin tells of Bleibel and Musta. (Note that we refer to the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN, that straddle the Mississippi River as the “twin cities”!) Tell Kefrein is the most prominent tell in the immediate proximity of Tell el-Hammam and is considered to be the best candidate for Gomorrah. The other surrounding tells, which are unnamed in the biblical text, are considered to be lesser satellite cities under the control of Sodom.

The next mention of Sodom in the biblical text is in Chapter 13. The context for this reference is in Chapter 12, where Abraham (then Abram) leaves his home in Ur, travels to Haran to visit his brother, and then leaves Mesopotamia accompanied by his nephew Lot. They travel south to the region of Bethel and Ai and find that there is famine in the land, so the continue traveling south and eventually stop in Egypt. In Chapter 13, Abraham and Lot leave Egypt and make their way back to Bethel and Ai. They prospered greatly while in Egypt, and their herds and flocks are now too large for them to stay together.

It is from this location between Bethel and Ai that Lot looks to the east and sees “that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt” (verse 10, New International Version). Lot “chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east....[and] Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom” (verses 11, 12).

There are several key geographical markers in Chapter 13. First, the “whole plain of the Jordan” is visible from Bethel and Ai. The “plain of the Jordan” is kikkar ha-Yarden in the Hebrew. Ha-Yarden means “the descent” and is simply transliterated (not translated) into English. It speaks of the fresh water descent from the Sea of Galilee (185 m below sea level) to the Dead Sea (400 m below sea level) where the water “dies” in the brackishness of the Dead Sea.

Kikkar means “disc” and appears in various forms throughout ancient literature. It appears 69 times in 55 verses of the Bible. It is used 56 times to refer to a “talent” (coin) of silver or gold or a “loaf” of bread. Both of these objects are round and flat. It is used 13 times (only in the Bible and nowhere else in ancient literature) as a description of a piece of real estate -- 12 times referring to the 25 km diameter circular plain at the southern end of the Jordan Valley at the north end of the Dead Sea, and 1 time to refer to the plain around/near Jerusalem.

According to Genesis 13:10, Sodom must be -- and is -- located in the Kikkar ha-Yarden. Also according to Genesis 13:10, the Kikkar ha-Yarden and Sodom itself must be -- and are -- visible from Bethel and Ai, which are located about 15 km north of Jerusalem. According to Genesis 13:11, Sodom must be -- and is -- east of Bethel and Ai. In addition, Sodom must be located in a well-watered plain such that, from Bethel and Ai, it looked “like the garden of the LORD” (i.e., the Garden of Eden).

At that time, the wadis on either side (north and south) of Tell el-Hammam had water flowing in them year round. The water is now held back by the Kefrein Dam to the NNE of Tell el-Hammam. There were also seven springs (six “sweet” and one hot mineral spring) that fed the immediate vicinity of Tell el-Hammam. Subsequent earthquake activity has closed four of the original springs.

The plain in which Sodom is located must also be watered “like the land of Egypt,” a reference to the annual flooding of the Nile. Such was the case during the Middle Bronze Age. Much of the water of the Jordan is now siphoned off to support agriculture, so the annual flooding “like the Nile” no longer happens.

In Chapter 14, Sodom is mentioned several times in the context of strategic alliances between the kings of several fortified cities and an eventual conflict in the Valley of Siddim that resulted in the goods and produce of Sodom being carried away along with Lot and his family. Because of the mention of “tar pits” in the text, many scholars place the Valley of Siddim south of the Dead Sea where black slime pits have the appearance of tar pits.

During the period of annual flooding of the Jordan, similar slime pits appeared north of the Dead Sea, too. Therefore, there is no necessity to place the Valley of Siddim south of the Dead Sea. This could very well be a reference to the SW portion of the Kikkar ha-Yarden where the mud along the Dead Sea shore line even to this day is black and slimy. Another indicator that this battle may have occurred north of the Dead Sea is that Abraham and his 318 trained men pursued the invaders north to Damascus and recovered the stolen goods.

Sodom is mentioned again in Chapter 18 in the context of a visitation by angelic beings to Abraham in Mamre where they disclosed to him the LORD’s intention to destroy Sodom because of its wickedness. This destruction is carried out in Chapter 19. The mechanism of destruction is described in verse 24 as “burning sulfur and brimstone” or “brimstone and fire” in most English translations.

The Hebrew words are gophrit and esh. Whenever these two words are coupled together elsewhere, they usually carry the meaning of “lightning” and “fire.” Thus, lightning and fire came down from heaven and overturned/destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the whole plain, killing all of the inhabitants and destroying everything that grew upon the ground (my paraphrase of verses 24 & 25).

From this point on in the Scriptures, every explicit reference to Sodom (or Sodom and Gomorrah) per se is stereotypical in that Sodom is portrayed as the epitome of evil and its destruction as the quintessential example of what will happen to those who pursue an evil lifestyle. There are, however, at least two other names by which Tell el-Hammam is mentioned in the Old Testament.

In Genesis 50, following the death of Jacob, Joseph is granted permission by Pharaoh to take his father’s body back to the land of Canaan for internment with his wife and ancestors. A huge entourage of family, Egyptian dignitaries, chariots and horsemen accompanied him. The relevant part to this discussion is in verses 10 and 11:

The field of Machpelah, which contained the cave in which Jacob was to be entombed, is near Mamre, south of Jerusalem. The text, however, says that Joseph and his entourage stopped at a place called “the threshing floor of Atad” to mourn Jacob for seven days. “Atad” was not understood by the King James translators -- they assumed this word to be a proper name and did not translate it. Most English versions since then have followed this same translation. The word is now known to mean “thorns.” The phrase translated “threshing floor” also has the connotation of a “high place.” Thus, “the threshing floor of Atad” would be better translated “the high place of thorns.”

This would be an apt description of the Lower Tell of Hammam at that time since thorn bushes are among the first of the colonizing species that would return to the site following its cataclysmic destruction.

In both verses 9 and 11, this location is described as being “beyond (or across) the Jordan.” This description always uses Jerusalem as the point of reference, hence, the high place of thorns would have to be on the east side of the Jordan above the flood plain. Again, the Lower Tell of Hammam is the most likely candidate for Abel Mizraim, the “mourning place of the Egyptians.”

In Numbers 22, the Israelites drop down from the desert east of Moab into the “plains of Moab and camped along the Jordan across from Jericho” (verse 1). The “plains of Moab” is widely recognized as another name for the eastern side of the Kikkar. Later in Numbers, this location is more explicitly identified as “Shittim” (25:1) or “Abel Shittim” (33:49). “Abel”, as noted above, means “mourning” or “place of mourning.” “Shittim” means “acacia” and is descriptive of the trees that overgrew the eastern Kikkar during its long period of abandonment following the destruction of the cities of the plain. “Abel Shittim” is a specific reference to Tell el-Hammam, the place where the Israelites mourned the death of Moses for 30 days (Deuteronomy 34:8).

Shittim is the place from which Joshua sent the spies to check out Jericho before the Israelites moved on to capture it (Joshua 2:1). According to Joshua 3:15, the Jordan was at flood stage when the Israelites set out toward Jericho. Hence, the encampment had to have been on high ground, which is another indicator that the Lower Tell of Hammam is a likely candidate for Abel Shittim.

The biblical record, thus, reveals the former extensive hegemony of Sodom, its destruction and ruin, its iconic use that the quintessential example of sin and depravity and consequent divine judgment, its later use as a place of mourning by Joseph for his father among thorny bushes, and its use as a campsite for the Israelites among acacia trees prior to the initiation of their conquest of the Promised Land.

Anson Rainey -- one of Israel's most highly regarded geographers and linguists -- discovered something when examining the Egyptian execration texts from the latter part of the Middle Bronze Age. Rainey put all of the cities mentioned in the texts on a map and found, to his surprise, a site called Sutu. This place-name could be rendered several ways from the Egyptian, such as Sutu and Sudu. And, interestingly, this site fell squarely on top of Tell el-Hammam on the map!

States the magazine Let the Stones Speak: [2] "there is an objective case shift from the Egyptian into any of the Semitic languages in which you add the letter m, becoming Sutum or Sudum, which is exactly what we find in the Old Testament. So in the Middle Bronze Age Egyptian execration texts, the location of our site is called Sutu or Sudum" (page 20). And since, in the Semitic languages, the reader provides the vowels if not marked, the "u" in Sudum could become an "a," "e," "i," or "o" -- hence "Sodom."

As the inhabitants of an ancient Middle Eastern city now called Tell 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, mud bricks and pottery began to melt. Almost immediately, the entire city was on fire.

Some seconds later, a massive shockwave smashed into the city. Moving at about 740 mph (1,200 kph), it was more powerful than the worst tornado ever recorded. The deadly winds ripped through the city, demolishing every building. They sheared off the top 40 feet (12 m) of the 4-story palace and blew the jumbled debris into the next valley. None of the 8,000 people or any animals within the city survived -- their bodies were torn apart and their bones blasted into small fragments.

About a minute later, 14 miles (22 km) to the west of Tell el-Hammam, winds from the blast hit the biblical city of Jericho. Jericho’s walls came tumbling down and the city burned to the ground.

Getting answers required nearly 15 years of painstaking excavations by hundreds of people. It also involved detailed analyses of excavated material by more than two dozen scientists in 10 states in the U.S., as well as Canada and the Czech Republic. When our group finally published the evidence recently in the journal Scientific Reports, the 21 co-authors included archaeologists, geologists, geochemists, geomorphologists, mineralogists, paleobotanists, sedimentologists, cosmic-impact experts and medical doctors.

Here’s how we built up this picture of devastation in the past.

Years ago, when archaeologists looked out over excavations of the ruined city, they could see a dark, roughly 5-foot-thick (1.5 m) jumbled layer of charcoal, ash, melted mud bricks and melted pottery. It was obvious that an intense firestorm had destroyed this city long ago. This dark band came to be called the destruction layer. No one was exactly sure what had happened, but that layer wasn’t caused by a volcano, earthquake or warfare. None of them are capable of melting metal, mud bricks and pottery.

To figure out what could, our group used the Online Impact Calculator to model scenarios that fit the evidence. Built by impact experts, this calculator allows researchers to estimate the many details of a cosmic impact event, based on known impact events and nuclear detonations. It appears that the culprit at Tell el-Hammam was a small asteroid similar to the one that knocked down 80 million trees in Tunguska, Russia in 1908. It would have been a much smaller version of the giant miles-wide rock that supposedly pushed the dinosaurs into extinction 65 million ago.

We had a likely culprit. Now we needed proof of what happened that day at Tell el-Hammam.

Together, all this evidence shows that temperatures in the city rose higher than those of volcanoes, warfare and normal city fires. The only natural process left is a cosmic impact.

The same evidence is found at known impact sites, such as Tunguska and the Chicxulub crater, created by the asteroid that may have triggered the dinosaur extinction.

One remaining puzzle is why the city and over 100 other area settlements were abandoned for several centuries after this devastation. It may be that high levels of salt deposited during the impact event made it impossible to grow crops. We’re not certain yet, but we think the explosion may have vaporized or splashed toxic levels of Dead Sea salt water across the valley. Without crops, no one could live in the valley for up to 600 years, until the minimal rainfall in this desert-like climate washed the salt out of the fields.

[1] Dr. Steven Collins and Dr. Latayne C. Scott, Discovering the City of Sodom. New York: Howard Books, a Division of Simon & Shuster, 2013.

[2] "Uncovering the Biblical City of Sodom," Let the Stones Speak. Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology, January/February 2025, page 20.

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