We present evidence that in ~ 1650 BCE (~ 3600 years ago), a cosmic airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle-Bronze-Age city in the southern Jordan Valley northeast of the Dead Sea. The proposed airburst was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska, Russia, where a ~ 50-m-wide bolide detonated with ~ 1000× more energy than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. A city-wide ~ 1.5-m-thick carbon-and-ash-rich destruction layer contains peak concentrations of shocked quartz (~ 5-10 GPa); melted pottery and mudbricks; diamond-like carbon; soot; Fe- and Si-rich spherules; CaCO3 spherules from melted plaster; and melted platinum, iridium, nickel, gold, silver, zircon, chromite, and quartz. Heating experiments indicate temperatures exceeded 2000 °C. Amid city-side devastation, the airburst demolished 12+ m of the 4-to-5-story palace complex and the massive 4-m-thick mudbrick rampart, while causing extreme disarticulation and skeletal fragmentation in nearby humans. An airburst-related influx of salt (~ 4 wt.%) produced hypersalinity, inhibited agriculture, and caused a ~ 300-600-year-long abandonment of ~ 120 regional settlements within a > 25-km radius. Tall el-Hammam may be the second oldest city/town destroyed by a cosmic airburst/impact, after Abu Hureyra, Syria, and possibly the earliest site with an oral tradition that was written down (Genesis). Tunguska-scale airbursts can devastate entire cities/regions and thus, pose a severe modern-day hazard.

Analytical Instrumentation Facility North Carolina State University Raleigh NC 27695 USA

CAMCOR University of Oregon 1443 E 13th Ave Eugene OR 97403 USA

Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research Elizabeth City State University Elizabeth City NC 27909 USA

College of Archaeology Trinity Southwest University Albuquerque NM 87109 USA

Comet Research Group Prescott AZ 86301 USA

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry DePaul University Chicago IL 60614 USA

Department of Earth Science and Marine Science Institute University of California Santa Barbara CA 93106 USA

Department of Geological Sciences East Carolina University Greenville NC 27858 USA

Department of Natural Sciences Elizabeth City State University Elizabeth City NC 27909 USA

EAG Laboratories Eurofins Materials Science Raleigh NC 27606 USA

Faculty of Science Charles University Albertov 6 Prague 12843 Czech Republic

Geology Program School of Earth and Sustainability Northern Arizona University Flagstaff AZ 86011 USA

Geophysical Institute University of Alaska Fairbanks 903 Koyukuk Drive College AK 99775 USA

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos NM 87545 USA

Materials and Metallurgical Engineering New Mexico Institute On Mining and Technology Socorro NM 87801 USA

Restoration Systems L L C Raleigh NC 27604 USA

Savannah River Archaeological Research Program South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology University of South Carolina New Ellenton SC 29809 USA

Southern Research Institute 757 Tom Martin Drive Birmingham AL 35211 USA

US Navy NAVFAC Mid Atlantic Region NS Norfolk VA 23511 USA

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