Monday, March 26, 2007

Biblical archaeology followup This post linking to an article on the Tall el-Hammam site prompted one of the investigators to comment. Kind of a lengthy comment mostly having to do with the site's identification with the Biblical Sodom. Although I don't know why that was given such prominence; the only part I commented somewhat critically on was the mention of a substance found on a piece of pottery that was linked to nuclear detonations. Still waiting on that.

BTW, the site is listed on the university's web site.

UPDATE: You know, I looked up this 'trinitite' stuff and it appears to just be silica glass formed at the Trinity site. That is, it doesn't appear to be a particularly unusual substance, except maybe that it was radioactive. Most accounts I read pretty much described it as melted/fused quartz. It sounds more as if they found a piece of pottery that had been partially vitrified -- maybe it was tempered with quartz sand? -- which, being fired and all wouldn't be all that unusual, and someone somewhere threw in the trinitite idea.