Endnote 9 – Where Is Sodom?

Scattered pottery fragments from excavated Middle Bronze II contexts at Tall el-Hammam have surfaces melted into glass. Analysis reveals that the surface glass was formed when the kaolin of the clay body became heated by temperatures minimally in the range of volcanic magmas. Before the viscous glass could “run” barely 1 or 2 mm over the edges of the sherd-break, the heat dissipated, signaled by a molecular structure identical to the “quench texture” of volcanic glass. The temperature index was likely much higher than that associated with magmas because zircon crystals in the center of the kaolin-body (3-5mm below the glass) formed spheroids (“bubbles”), which typically occurs at about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. (Analysis of sherd/object HO.5–6.UB.21W.7.367 by Cameca SX-100 Microbrobe; performed by USGS geophysicists at New Mexico Technical University.)