An interesting post on the New Chronology Group forum. The New Chronology is that of David Rohl as outlined in several books he wrote. In the aftermath this forum was established in order to keep the ideas alive and discussed and has a vibrant list of subscribers. The other day there was a post by one Talbot Smith. He is committed to a Biblically based chronology but he also looks at the archaeology and tries to set it in a Biblical framework. Gibeon, it seems, was abandoned at about the same time as the destruction of Jericho IV – or destroyed. Gibeon has only partially been excavated, so there is a certain amount of ambiguity involved. However, there is no evidence of an occupation. Certainly not on a scale reminiscent of its earlier status. There are several LB tombs on the mound that require an explanation. Talbot Smith suggests these are related to the Biblical status of ‘high place’ – later the subject of cultic retribution in the Iron Age. See I Kings 3:4-5 and I Chronicles 21:29. In contrast, at Hebron the site was continuously occupied from MBII through to the Iron Age. People were there all the time, as far as can be judged. Why would that be so? Contrary to what Smith goes on to say the situation fits perfectly into the scenario of Steve Collins, excavator of Tall el-Hammam, on the opposite side of the Jordan to Jericho. Collins, supported by specialists in cosmic impacts and airburst events, claims Hammam was destroyed by an air blast. Collins specifically followed the Biblical description of the whereabouts of Sodom and alighted on Tall el-Hammam, a huge tell surrounded by satellite towns and villages. The hub of a region, the Kikkar, straddling important trade routes. What its real name was is a matter of debate as Sodom became embroiled in a religious controversy surrounding alternative sexual practises. Probably at a much later point in time. However, once excavations at Hammam began it became clear that there was a terrible catastrophic end to the city involving scorched soil, numerous small bones and splinters of bone of humans, mud bricks that had been heated to a surprising temperature and various evidences of an air burst event that incinerated a large portion of the Kikkar region, a circular plain where the Jordan joins the Dead Sea. Collins, over a lengthy period of time, year after year, excavated right down to lower levels of the mound and it seems Hammam, unlike many other sites in the Levant, survived as a liveable location even at the end of the EB period. This involved huge destruction of sites across the Levant, Mesopotamia, what is now Turkey, as well as the Aegean. The French archaeologist, Claude Schaeffer, back in 1948, attributed this mainly as the result of earthquakes. What the agency might have been to kickstart so many earthquakes has never been explained. In fact, his idea of mass earthquakes was ridiculed, at the time, something that will come back to haunt archaeology. There is already evidence of a cosmic event at this time, in what is now North Syria, as studiously teased from the soil under the guidance of another French archaeologist, Marie-Agnes Courtey. She was a speaker at one of the SIS Cambridge conferences, at Fitzwilliam College, in the late 1990s. Basically, her work has been ignored by mainstream archaeologists in the English speaking world – apart from SIS, that is. They have tried to silence Collins excavation results more recently. In fact, you won’t find much about it in mainstream journals. Initially it attracted a lot of interest but that faded as a vociferous pro Homosexual lobby used cancel culture to deny any connection with the Biblical story. Never the less, it is not going to go away as Collins team, now retired and working in the US, in laboratories and other places, are in the process of assembling evidence to confirm what happened. They have a huge quantity of pottery collected over the excavation seasons, and various other items of interest, including microscopice pieces of human bone. Collins has already written a couple of books during the excavation period but the final one based on everything that he has at his fingertips in his university, will be the big one that will be a legacy to the endeavour of the team and the numerous volunteers that took part over the years. One of those includes the web site owner of https://cosmictusk.com … You will find a lot of information on air bursts and Hammam on this web site, including published and retracted papers on the subject.
The interesting point about the post on the New Chronology Group forum is that Collins says that Abraham was in the vicinity of Hebron when the air blast occurred. High ground intervened between his position and that of Hammam, at the bottom of the Jordan valley geological rift. The explosion took place over the Dead Sea, releasing a huge plume of salty water in the process. All Abraham saw was smoke from the aftermath of the explosion – but Lot, on the other side of the Dead Sea had a much clearer view. His wife perished. This story, surviving down the centuries, appears to be authentic as Collins found Sodom by following the Biblical description of its location. At a later stage it was integrated into the Biblical narrative. However, for a long time it must have been just one of a lot of tradional stories – but one that made a deep impression on a generation, and following generations. Hence, whereas Gibeon and Jericho were in the hairline of the airburst, Hebron was not. Talbot Smith appears to have established clear proof from archaeology. He did not of course mention Hammam but was more interested in associating the events with Joshua’s conquest – and the entry of the Israelites into Cisjordan. At the same time as the walls of Jericho were destroyed. David Rohl chose to date Joshua to the end of the MB period and this is what the group is interested in supporting with evidence. However, according to Collins, Hammam was destroyed around 100 years or so prior to the end of the MB period. Smith connects with that timeline, inadvertently, by saying Jericho was destroyed at the end of what used to be called MBIIB [roughly a hundred years prior to the end of the MBIIC period in earlier nomenclature. One might also note that the arrival of the Hyksos, as migrants from the Levant, was associated by Manetho with a ‘blast from God’ or ‘a blast from heaven.’ This appears to confirm, in written literature from ancient Egypt, that an airburst was in fact a likely explanation for that wording. It is also interesting in that the Bible only preserves this one reference to an airburst event. We may assume the Bible has at some point been airbrushed of its pre-Judaic traditions, although it has preserved some interesting parallels in the Psalms and Exodus storyline. Perhaps the Sodom story was too potent to omit, or water down. This web site has a link to Bill Thompson’s compilation of Biblical catastrophes as gleaned by sifting the narrative by various people including himself and Phil Silvia, one of the excavators of Hammam. The Hyksos, we may note, left Egypt during a period of strange events that energised the Egyptians to expel them, after a war that seems to have involved another catastrophic event of some kind. Perhaps this was the Exodus event – but Collins places that somewhat later, during dynasty 18. Collins also had another interesting observation. The Patriarchal narrative appears to match the known behaviour and activity of Habiru groups as recorded in Egyptian sources, and others of the MB period. They were allowed to graze their animals on the fringe of city states on the basis they provided the city elite with protection from rogue elements, and invading armies. Perhaps this is why so many Habiru were catalogued as prisoners of war by Egyptian pharaohs. We may also note that the Judges period is essentially the history of Habiru groups, or outsiders in urban Canaan. The actual history of the Canaanites does not really occur in the Judges or the Patriarchal narrative. They don’t come into it until the Iron Age and the advent of David. The authors are only concerned with the Habiru groups – or Hebrews. What was going on in the background is ignored. This is why the Bible doesn’t really tell us much about the Egyptian empire in the Levant during the LB period, or Egyptian incursions during the MB period. There is always the chance that material mentioning Egyptian inroads was omitted at a later stage – in the time of Josiah, for example, when anti-Egyptian feeling was high. It must have been fairly late as David united Canaanite with Habiru. The Canaanite cult practises were later demonised and we may imagine that it revolved around the catastrophism inherent in the Baal Epic, and other literature. Hence, it involved a grounding of religion that could only have occurred mid first millennium BC, at the same time as cult practise around the world was changing. From the Greeks to the Chinese and Indians. The sky gods had had their day.