Tall el-Hammam Destruction Layer - Biblical Archaeology Encyclopedia

Overview

Tall el-Hammam is a large two-tiered tell in the southern Jordan Valley north-east of the Dead Sea, excavated since 2005 by a team led by Steven Collins. The excavators describe a fortified city occupied from the Chalcolithic through the Middle Bronze Age, ended by a thick burned destruction layer and followed by a long gap in regional settlement.

In 2021 T. Bunch and 20 co-authors argued in Scientific Reports that a Tunguska-size cosmic airburst caused the destruction, citing shocked quartz, melted pottery and mudbrick, spherules and metal grains, and linked it to the Sodom story. S. J. Jaret and R. S. Harris (Sci. Rep. 12, 2022) rebutted the mineralogy and geochemistry; M. Boslough and A. Bruno (Sci. Rep. 15, 2025) rebutted the Tunguska comparison. On 24 April 2025 the journal retracted the 2021 article.

What remains is the destruction layer itself - burned debris up to c. 1.5 m thick with high-temperature material - and the argument about what caused it and whether the city is Sodom. The retraction removes the published support for the airburst cause; it does not remove the destroyed city.

What the evidence shows

Destruction 'debris matrix' up to ~1.5 m thick across most of the tall, capped in places by a thin laminated 'blow-over layer' with plaster fragments, limestone spherules and charcoal (Bunch et al. 2021).
26 radiocarbon dates from the layer; 20 combine to 1661 ± 21 BCE (Bunch et al. 2021, OxCal 4.4/IntCal20).
Site size claimed: 36 ha fortified + ~30 ha lower settlement, described as >4x Tall Nimrin and >5x Jericho (Bunch et al. 2021).
Materials reported: shocked-quartz candidates, pottery with melted glassy surfaces, melted mudbrick, Fe/Si-rich spherules, metal grains (Bunch et al. 2021) - each of these interpretations is what Jaret & Harris (2022) contest.
The 2021 article received Author Corrections (22 Feb 2022; 22 May 2023) and a Matters Arising (25 March 2022) before its retraction (Scientific Reports article page).
Retraction note (Sci. Rep. 15:14291, online 24 Apr 2025): 'the claims that an airburst event destroyed the Middle Bronze Age city of Tall el-Hammam appear to not be sufficiently supported by the data in the Article.'

Open questions

Cause of the destruction: Bunch et al. (Sci. Rep. 11:18632, 2021) read the melted materials and shocked-quartz candidates as proof of a >Tunguska airburst above 2000 °C. Jaret & Harris ('No mineralogic or geochemical evidence of impact at Tall el-Hammam', Sci. Rep. 12:5189, 2022) contest the mineralogical and geochemical identifications and methods. Boslough & Bruno (Sci. Rep. 15:13869, 2025) show the Tunguska comparison inherited overestimates of temperature, wind speed and blast. Eleven of the original authors (LeCompte, Burleigh, Hermes, Wolbach, Kletetschka, Witwer, Howard, Moore, Kennett, West, Silvia) disagree with the retraction (retraction note). Other causes (warfare, fire, earthquake) are not tested in the retracted paper; the layer's cause is presently unestablished in the peer-reviewed record.
Is it Sodom? Bunch et al. (2021) note the 'ongoing debate as to whether Tall el-Hammam could be the biblical city of Sodom (Silvia and references therein)' and set it aside. The identification rests on geography - Gen 13:10-12 places Sodom in 'the kikkar of the Jordan', which the excavators equate with the plain north-east of the Dead Sea. Rival proposals place the Cities of the Plain south of the Dead Sea; their publications are not reviewed here. No site has produced an inscription naming Sodom.
Date vs. biblical chronology: a c. 1650 BCE destruction is later than the c. 2000 BCE date for Abraham often derived from the Masoretic numbers (1 Kgs 6:1 + Gen/Exod figures). Anyone equating the two must either move Abraham or reject the equation; the stratigraphy itself says nothing about Abraham.

Since 2024

2025-04Boslough & Bruno publish a rebuttal of the Tunguska comparison (Sci. Rep. 15:13869, 22 Apr 2025); two days later Scientific Reports retracts Bunch et al. 2021 (24 Apr 2025), with 11 authors disagreeing. [1]

Sources

Retraction Note: 'A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea,' Scientific Reports 15:14291 (2025), DOI 10.1038/s41598-025-99265-5 link study
T. E. Bunch et al., 'A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea,' Scientific Reports 11:18632 (2021), DOI 10.1038/s41598-021-97778-3 (RETRACTED 2025) link excavation report
S. J. Jaret and R. S. Harris, 'No mineralogic or geochemical evidence of impact at Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea,' Scientific Reports 12:5189 (2022), DOI 10.1038/s41598-022-08216-x link study
M. Boslough and A. Bruno, 'Misunderstandings about the Tunguska event, shock wave physics, and airbursts have resulted in misinterpretations of evidence at Tall el-Hammam,' Scientific Reports 15:13869 (2025), DOI 10.1038/s41598-025-98362-9 link study
S. Collins, C. M. Kobs and M. C. Luddeni, The Tall al-Hammam Excavations, Volume 1: An Introduction to Tall al-Hammam: Seven Seasons (2005-2011) of Ceramics and Architecture (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns / Penn State University Press, 2015), DOI 10.1515/9781575063706 link excavation report

Corrected from the earlier edition of this page

Old entry: 'shows evidence of a catastrophic event involving an airburst or meteor strike' and summary-box line 'Evidence of massive airburst destruction.' The article that made that claim was retracted by Scientific Reports on 24 April 2025; the editors 'no longer have confidence that the conclusions presented are reliable.'
Old entry: 'The research team has published extensively ... in peer-reviewed journals, demonstrating that the destruction was ... sudden and violent.' The main peer-reviewed paper is retracted; two peer-reviewed rebuttals (2022, 2025) stand.
Old entry: 'covering roughly 50 hectares.' The excavators' own figure is 36 ha fortified plus ~30 ha of lower settlement (Bunch et al. 2021).
Old entry: 'ash and debris up to 1 meter thick.' The excavators report up to ~1.5 m (Bunch et al. 2021).
Old entry: 'melted quartz and trinitite-like materials.' The 2021 paper compared some melt textures with trinitite; that is the interpretation Jaret & Harris (2022) contest.
Old entry: 'provides the first archaeological evidence ... at the right time to align with the biblical chronology for Sodom.' A c. 1650 BCE destruction does not align with the c. 2000 BCE patriarchal date derived from the Masoretic chronology without re-dating Abraham; the alignment is asserted, not shown.
Old entry: 'Radiocarbon dating confirms Middle Bronze timing' - the dates (1661 ± 21 BCE) are in the retracted article; they have not been separately republished in any source checked here.

2024–2026 check incomplete: partial - the retraction and rebuttals were checked directly; the web-search quota ran out before new excavation seasons (2024-2026) could be searched