Joseph A. Callaway in Stern et al. (1993 v. 1) described the destruction in Stratum V as a “disaster of massive proportions” which “brought the Early Bronze Age II city to an end.” He concluded that an earthquake was responsible. Evidence of destruction was found “at every excavated site.” The buildings and walls were in ruins, and there was evidence of fire. A half-meter of roof-fall and brick debris was found on the floor of Building B. Houses at Site C were covered by up to a meter of “bricky ruins.” The floors of the acropolis complex were covered in "thick layers of ash". The strongest destruction evidence was found at Site D. There a rift in the bedrock extended from the temple through to the north wall and "the curved wall on the west side of the temple was shifted, and when it was rebuilt in the Early Bronze Age IIIA, the angle of tilt westward was preserved in the reconstruction."

Pottery and artifacts from this phase were assigned to the Early Bronze Age IIB. One distinctive kind of pottery which appeared in the Early Bronze Age IIB at Ai was Abydos ware known from "discoveries at Saqqara in Egypt". Joseph A. Calloway in Stern et al. (1993 v. 1) suggested that the "Early Bronze Age IIB city at Ai was probably destroyed before the end of the Second Dynasty". He added that four carbon-14 assays yielded a date of "about 2720 BCE for the termination of the city, or about twenty years before the beginning of the Third Dynasty".