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Interesting. I mean, the Jews have a history of describing things that sound like nuclear weapons like the Ark.... https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1475-4754.1967.tb00623.x RADIOACTIVJTY OF JERICHO BONES BY I. M. B,LAKE* and J. CYNTHIA WEBERt+ ‘Balliol College, Oxford University. 7 Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford University. Research into the hydrology of springs at the Dead Sea shore (west bank) south of Qumran has revealed that some are radioactive. The radioactivity is peculiarly localised and not necessarily permanent, the onset of such contamination being unpredictable (Moyle and Thomas). That the spring Ain es-Sultan (site of ancient Jericho) is also in the Jordan Valley and may draw water from the same basic source suggests that, although it is clean today, it may in the past have suffered similar contamination. Archaeologically Jericho has seen two major periods of desertion. The first followed the “Pre-Pottery Neolithic B” period (Kenyon, personal communication). The second began about 1325 B.C. and lasted until after 800 B.C. (Kenyon 1965, p. 21 1). This latter desertion is Biblically attested and attributed to a curse laid by Joshua on Jericho (Joshua, 6. v/26). Subsequent reoccupation is recorded in connection with the “miracle” whereby Elisha is popularly supposed to have healed the water with salt (Kings 11, 2,v/ 19-22). Hebrew phraseology, particularly that of the passage often translated as “the water is naught, and the land miscarryeth” (Kings 11, 2v 19) offers a clear suggestion that the effect of the curse was a form of sterility. It has been argued that radioactive contamination of the spring would explain the observed effect recorded in the Old Testament (Blake 1967). The alpha radioactivity of 20 animal bones from Jericho has been measured. ‘Two of the samples are from the end of the Middle Bronze age (prior to the second desertion) the rest being Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN). The bones were crushed and the alpha radioactivity measured using a thick sample on a 2” diameter ZnS screen observed by a photomultiplier tube. Seventeen of the samples ranged in activity from 3.2 to 9.5 counts per kilosecond. The most recent of the PPN B bones was 15.3 cts/ks and the two MI3 bones were 24.3 and 31.7 cts/ks. The alpha ray energy spectrum was kindly measured for two of these samples by Dr. R. D. Cherry and Mr. Julian Hobbs of the University of Capetown. For a 3.6 cts/ks sample they found apparently the conventional Uranium series, whereas the radioactivity of the 31.7 cts/ks sample was composed almost entirely of 5.24k 0.06 MeV alphas, probably from 210Po supported by its parent zlnPb. If it is Z1oPb, which has a half life of only twenty-two years, the radioactivity measured at present cannot be the remnant of radioactivity acquired several thousand years ago. but must instead be contamination from more recent times. The data may thus indicate the presence of high radioactivity in the ground water at Jericho within the last few hundred years. Measurements on more bones from the area are planned. It is hoped to confirm the presence of 210Po and zloPb. and to determine the nature of the higher radioactivity in the most recent PPN (B) bone. Skeletal material from Jericho was made available through the good offices of Miss K. M. Kenyon. C.B.E., Litt.D.. F.S.A., Principal of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford.