Har Karkom
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Har Karkom ("Mountain of Saffron", also called Jabal Ideid) is a mountain in the southwest Negev desert in Israel, half way between Petra and Kadesh Barnea. On the basis that the Israelites travelled across the Sinai peninsula towards Petra in a fairly straight line, a number of scholars have contemplated the possibility of Jabal Ideid being the Biblical Mount Sinai. Following this theory, Emmanuel Anati excavated at the mountain, and discovered that it was a major paleolithic cult centre, with the surrounding plateau covered with shrines, altars, stone circles, stone pillars, and over 40,000 rock engravings.
Although, on the basis of his findings, Anati advocates the identification of Jabal Ideid with Mount Sinai[1][2], the peak of religious activity at the site dates to 2350-2000 BC, and the mountain appears to have been abandoned between 1950-1000 BC; the exodus is usually dated between 1600-1200 BC.
[edit] Citations and Notes
- ^ Emmanuel Anati, The riddle of Mount Sinai : archaeological discoveries at Har Karkom (2001)
- ^ Mount Sinai has been found: Archaeological discoveries at Har Karkom
[edit] Further reading
- Emmanuel Anati. "Introducing the World Archives of Rock Art (WARA): 50.000 years of visual arts". New discoveries, new interpretations, new research methods, XXI Valcamonica Symposium , Capo di Ponte, Edizioni del Centro, 2004: 51–69.
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