Serabit el-Khadim

harlotscurse (65)in #exodus • 7 years ago

Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah – Part 30

Part 1

The Ascent to Serabit el-Khadim

Before resuming our study of the forty-two Stations of the Exodus, let us examine Lina Eckenstein’s hypothesis that the Mountain of God, where Moses is alleged to have received the Tablets of the Ten Commandments, was at Serabit el-Khadim, an ancient mining facility in the west of the Sinai Peninsula.

Lina Eckenstein was British polymath with a wide range of interests, including history and archaeology. Born in London in 1857 to a Jewish revolutionary, who had fled from Germany in the wake of the 1848 uprisings, she grew up to become an exceptionally erudite, talented and progressive woman for that time. She had a curious nature and a keen mind and was versed in more than half a dozen languages, gifts which enabled her to earn an independent living as a researcher and translator in the 1890s. She was largely self-taught and pursued no academic qualifications, preferring instead to inhabit the fringes of academia, and immerse herself in a variety of subjects that captured her attention.

In 1903, she developed a new field of interest: archaeology. She subsequently worked as an administrator for Hilda and William Flinders Petrie on several of their excavations in Egypt and Sinai, including one at the ancient mining site of Serabit el-Khadim. Around 1905, she and Hilda trekked across the Sinai Peninsula accompanied only by a single guide.

Drawing upon these experiences, she went on to write A History of Sinai, in which she traced the history of the region back to pre-dynastic times. First published in 1921, this is the work in which she laid out her theory that Moses received the Ten Commandments at Serabit el-Khadim.

Serabit El Khadim and Wadi Maghara

When Eckenstein joined the Flinders Petries’ expedition to Sinai (1905-06), she was already harbouring doubts concerning the traditional identification of Gebel Musa (ie Mount Sinai) with the Biblical Mountain of God:

I had long been interested in the hermit life of the peninsula and in the growing belief that the Gebel Musa was not the Mountain of the Law. The excavations at Serabit and the non-Egyptian character of the ancient hill sanctuary supplied new material for reflection. In the hours spent in sorting fragments of temple offerings and copying temple inscriptions it occurred to me that we might be on the site which meant so much in the history of religion. Studies made after our return suggested further points of interest. (Eckenstein iii)

Serabit el-Khadim is located in the red sandstone mountains of southwestern Sinai:

This sandstone district is cut into by deep gorges and canyons, that have sheer falls of several hundred feet in places. It comprises the mountains which yielded turquoise and copper, products that brought the neighbouring people into Sinai. Beads of turquoise were found in the pre-dynastic tombs of Egypt which probably came from Sinai, while there was an increasing demand for copper in the surrounding countries from the close of the Neolithic Age ... Turquoise appears in a ferruginous layer in the sandstone at the height of about 2650 ft. [800 m] at Serabit, and at the height of about 1170 ft. [357 m] at Maghara above sea-level. The copper ore occurs in the Wadi Nasb, and in the Wadi Khalig, somewhat extensively in the latter, together with iron and manganese. Enormous slag heaps lie at the head of the Wadi Nasb and near the outlet of the Wadi Baba [Wadi Humr], which bear evidence to former smelting activity. Again, in the Wadi Sened, a dyke rich in copper traverses syenite for a distance of nearly two miles. (Eckenstein 3)

Serabit el-Khadim, the Debbet er-Ramleh (Plain of Sand) and, in the Distance, the Escarpment of the Badiet et-Tih (Desert of Wandering)

There is no evidence that the ancient Egyptians ever extracted iron or manganese from these mountains, but they did mine them for their copper and turquoise—and possibly also lapis lazuli (Hoffmeier 36)—in pre-dynastic and dynastic times:

The district which was worked by the ancient Egyptians was comprised between the valley system of the Wadi Baba on the north, and that of the Wadi Sidreh on the south, both of which have their outlet in the direction of the coastal plain of El Markha. It was from this side that the ancient Egyptians approached Sinai. The chief height of the district is the Tartir ed Dhami (black cap), so called from the dark basalt that forms its summit, which rises to a height of 3531 ft [1076 m]. There is also the double-peaked Umm Riglen (mother of two feet) which rises to the south of the Wadi Umm Agraf and dominates the height of Serabit. (Eckenstein 3)

Hieroglyphs for Mine, Etc (Budge 210)

It is believed that local tribes of Arabs had been mining this region before the Egyptians conquered it. The name Serabit el-Khadim may be of Arabic origin, but some have argued for an Egyptian etymology, linking it to the Ancient Egyptian: biȝ [Bia], mine, the mining country. This was the general name for the district in dynastic times (Eckenstein 17, Hoffmeier 39), though it may have been used to refer to the entire peninsula between the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba. It was formerly read as bȧ or bȧa:

Hieroglyphs for Mining Country (Pierret 119)

The Cult of the Moon

Sinai is believed to have been the centre of a Moon-Cult from early times:

The name Sinai is first mentioned in the Song of Deborah (Judges v. 5) ... and in the story of Exodus. It perpetuates the early form of belief of the inhabitants of the peninsula. For the word Sinai together with Sin (Exod. xvi. i) and Zin (Num. xiii. 21), all date back to Sin, a name of the moon-god in ancient Babylonia. (Eckenstein 8)

This suggests that Sinai acquired this name during the days of the Assyrian Empire, when Egypt and Sinai were subject to Assur. In the Short Chronology, there was only one Assyrian Empire—identical with the Old Assyrian Empire and the Akkadian Empire of mainstream archaeology—which I would date tentatively from 900-700 BCE. The Imperial Assyrians conquered Egypt and Sinai. In Manetho’s Aegyptiaca, they are referred to as the Hyksos. In Egyptian hieroglyphs they were also called Amu (Asiatics). Velikovsky believed that the Hyksos or Amu were Arabs and that they were identical with the Amalekites of the Old Testament. This is a subject I intend to return to in a later article in this series. For the moment, I will merely suggest the possibility that the Amalekites were Arabian allies of the Assyrians, compliant locals who were appointed by the Assyrians to govern Egypt and Sinai on their behalf.

If the Amalekites were Arabs native to Sinai, then it is possible that they were the true source of the local Moon-Cult. Like Akkadian (the language spoken by the Assyrians), Arabic is a Semitic language. In her book, Eckenstein makes much of the theories—still controversial—that both Judaism and Islam evolved out of pagan Moon-Cults.

The monuments found in Sinai contain information which points to the existence of moon-worship there at a remote period of history. These monuments consist in rock-tablets which were engraved by the Pharaohs from the First Dynasty onwards over the mines which they worked at Maghara, and of remains of various kinds discovered in the temple ruins of the neighbouring Sarbut-el-Khadem or Serabit. Maghara more especially was associated with the moon-god and was presumably the site of a shrine during the period of Babylonian or Arabic influence which preceded the invasion of the peninsula by the Egyptians. (Eckenstein 12)

Hathor

In Egyptian texts, the deity most closely associated with Serabit el-Khadim was Hathor, who is called The Lady of Turquoise. She was the patron of the mining district and it was to her that the Egyptian temple at Serabit was dedicated (Hoffmeier 166). In Egyptian iconography Hathor was often depicted as a cow, or as a woman crowned with the horns of a cow. The rising Sun was usually depicted between her horns. Eckenstein believes that Hathor was the Egyptian equivalent of a local Semitic goddess called Ba’alat:

Hathor stands for the unwedded mother-goddess who appears as Ishtar in Babylonia, as Ashtoreth in Canaan, and as the Queen of Heaven generally. At Serabit her name appears in script which may be Semitic ... The name consists of a sequence of four signs, which Dr. Alan Gardiner reads as Ba-alat: “Almost every Egyptian inscription from Serabit names the goddess Hathor, and there could not possibly be a better equivalent for the name of this goddess than Ba-alat.”

The goddess Ba‘alat may be identical with Al-Lat, who is mentioned in the Quran.

Hieroglyphic inscriptions in the mining district also frequently mention the god Thoth. Thoth is sometimes represented in Egyptian iconography as a baboon, and many baboon figurines have been recovered from Serabit (Eckenstein 12). Eckenstein believes that Thoth was the Egyptian equivalent of Sin, the Semitic Moon god (Eckenstein 10). The moon disk was another common symbol associated with Thoth in Egyptian iconography, and there is no doubt that he was a god of the moon (Chisholm 882).

A third god venerated at Serabit el-Khadim was known to the Egyptians as Sopdu, Lord of the East. Like Ba‘alat, Sopdu is believed to have been originally a Semitic deity. It is surely significant that his principal shrine in Egypt is to be found in the 20th Nome of Per-Sopdu, which is thought to have included the Biblical Land of Goshen, where the Israelites settled. His name may be cognate with the Hebrew: shophet, judge (Eckenstein 28).

Rock-Cut Shrines at Serabit el-Khadim (Eckenstein 27)

The oldest shrines at Serabit el-Khadim were cut out of a pre-existing cave:

The sanctuary of Serabit at the outset consisted of a cave, or rather of two caves adjacent to one another, of which the larger, which has been squared, measures 20 by 10 feet [6 by 3 m], the smaller one measures 6 by 4 feet [2 by 1 m] with three steps leading up to a round-headed apse or recess. (Eckenstein 17)

Flinders Petrie referred to this cave as the sacred cave (Petrie 72). According to Louis Ginzberg’s The Legends of the Jews, there was a cave on the Mountain of God. Moses is alleged to have taken refuge in this cave when God appeared on the Mountain in all his glory:

The cave in which Moses concealed himself while God passed in review before him with His celestial retinue, was the same in which Elijah lodged when God revealed Himself to him on Horeb. If there had been in it an opening even as tiny as a needle’s point, both Moses and Elijah would have been consumed by the passing Divine light, which was of an intensity so great that Moses, although quite shut off in the cave, nevertheless caught the reflection of it, so that from its radiance his face began to shine. (Ginzberg 137)

Proto-Sinaitic

The script in which the goddess is called Ba‘alat is now called Proto-Sinaitic and is believed to be an early version of the Canaanitic or Phoenician alphabet, one that was devised by Semitic-speakers in Egypt (represented by the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions of Upper Egypt). Its prominent use in and close to the Egyptian temple at Serabit testifies to the presence of Semites in the mining region. If the Israelites passed this may, they would have found friends and allies among the local inhabitants.

Proto-Sinaitic Inscription (Ba‘alat) at Serabit el-Khadim

The Approaches to Serabit

It is thought that the ancient Egyptian miners approached Serabit from the west across the Plain of el-Markha, and not from the north through the steep and tortuous gorges that led up from the Debbet er-Ramleh (Plain of Sand):

But it was not along these gorges, but along a path leading up from the plain El Markha along the Wadi Baba and the Wadi Nasb that the ancient Egyptians approached the sanctuary. (Eckenstein 18)

An ancient Egyptian fortress has been discovered at Tell Ras Budran on the Plain of El-Markha, about 10 km south-east of Abu Zenima, and 200 m from the coast. It is thought that this stronghold was constructed during the Old Kingdom to guard the path leading up from the sea to the mining district (Barnard & Duistermaat 112). The ancient Egyptians are believed to have crossed the Gulf of Suez by boat from the port of ‘Ayn Sukhna, landing on the Sinai coast at Ras Budran (Mumford 58). From there they made their way to the mining district via the Wadi Baba (Wadi Humr), the Wadi Nasb and the Wadi Beda:

Inscriptions of miners heading for Serabit from Egypt have recently been discovered at Ain Sukhnah on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, about forty kilometers (twenty-five miles) south [actually SSW] of Suez. (Hoffmeier 165)

The ancient Israelites, being on foot, would surely have reached Serabit by a different route—assuming, of course, that they passed this way.

Ras Budran

The Mountain of God

The Mountain of God has been sought in many different places over the centuries. Eckenstein mentions a few of the most popular candidates:

To the south of the ancient mining district ... lies the Wadi Feiran, one of the best watered and fruitful valleys of the peninsula, to the south of which Mount Serbal rises abruptly from a comparatively low elevation to the height of 6734 ft [2053 m]. This mountain has been described as one great lump of diorite, and its majestic appearance led some recent travellers, including Lepsius and Bartlett to identify it as the Mountain of the Law. Further south lies the great group of mountains which include the Gebel Musa, 7359 ft. [2243 m] high, and the Gebel Katrîn with its three peaks, the highest of which rises to 8527 ft [2599 m]. The Gebel Musa from early Christian times was generally looked upon as the Mountain of the Law. At its foot lies the great convent of Sinai, at one time known as the Bush, which has carried on to the present day the traditions of the early Christian hermits, who settled in the peninsula. The Gebel Katrîn lying further south, was looked upon during the later Middle Ages as the height on which the angels deposited the body of St. Katherine. Another imposing height of the group is the Ras Safsaf, 6540 ft. [1993 m] high, which has been put forward in recent times as a possible Mountain of the Law. (Eckenstein 3-4)

Other candidates have also been proposed, including Har Karkom in Edom and Jebel Lauz in Midian:

Candidates for the Mountain of God

In the Bible, the Mountain of God makes its first appearance long before the Exodus. After killing an Egyptian, Moses flees to Midian, where he enters the service of a local priest called Jethro:

In the service of Jethro, Moses led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb (Exod. iii. i). Here he found himself on holy ground. The presence of a priest, of a mountain of God, and of a reserved tract of land, point to an ancient sanctuary, and our thoughts naturally turn to Serabit, for many centuries a High Place of Burning, a centre of moon-cult and a shrine of the Semitic god Sopd. The wall of rough stones across the Wadi Umm Agraf marked the limit of the ground that was reserved to the sanctuary. This would be the backside of the desert from which Moses approached the mountain. (Eckenstein 67)

God appears to Moses in the guise of a burning bush. Eckenstein’s rationalization of this phenomenon is too ludicrous to warrant further discussion (Eckenstein 67-68). Moses subsequently marries Jethro’s daughter Zipporah. Many years later, during the Exodus, Moses led the Israelites back to this spot, where they were met by Jethro. Eckenstein believes that the Exodus was actually a pilgrimage to this holy place:

Having reached the goal of their pilgrimage, the Israelites encamped near the Mount of God, Har-ha-elohim (Exod. xviii. 5), a word which can also be read as height of the priests. If we identify this goal as Serabit, it follows that they encamped near the outlet of one of the gorges on the northern side of the plateau in the direction of the Wadi Suweig, probably near the outlet of the Wadi Dhaba. This was the side from which there was direct access to the cave of Sopd, and the side on which the Semitic inscriptions were found in the mines. (Eckenstein 74)

When Moses comes down from the Mountain for the first time, we are told:

And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. (Exodus 24:3-4)

Note that Moses erects twelve pillars (mazzeboth) at the foot of the Mountain. As Eckenstein points out, the temple complex at Serabit is noted for its standing stones:

Standing Stones at Serabit el-Khadim

The Golden Calf

Moses ascends the Mountain of God for the second time, and fasts for forty days and forty nights. During this time, Aaron and the Israelites create the Gold Calf, which they worship;

We read that Moses’ second stay in the Mount lasted forty days and forty nights, during which he fasted (Exod. xxxiv. 28). The Moslim identified this fast as Ramadan, which, before Mohammad interfered with its date, happened during the heat of summer [Footnote: “Ramadan, the time when the heat commenced and the soil was burning hot.” Al Biruni (c. A.D. 1000), c. 19, 1879, p. 321.]. The Israelites at the foot of the mountain, probably observed the same fast, since Aaron’s reason for making the calf was that “to-morrow shall be a feast of the Lord,” i.e. at the conclusion of the fast, there was feasting, drinking, throwing off of clothes, dancing and much noise (Exod. xxxii. 6, 17, 25). In this case it was a question of a full moon festival, for, on a later occasion, Jeroboam made two calves of gold, one of which he set up in Bethel and one in Dan, and ordained a feast on the 15th day (i Kings xii. 28, 32). (Eckenstein 76)

The casting of an elaborate golden idol would certainly have required the presence of sophisticated metallurgical facilities. Serabit el-Khadim is perhaps the only candidate for the Mountain of God where such facilities were available. And if the Mountain of God was at Serabit el-Khadim, is it possible that the Golden Calf was Hathor? Significantly, one of Hathor’s epithets in ancient Egypt was The Golden One. The holy of holies in the Temple of Hathor near Dendera, in Upper Egypt, is called the Dwelling of the golden one or Chamber of the golden-beaming one (Baedeker 94-95).

Hieroglyphs for Dwelling of the Golden One (Baedeker 95)

Mountain Peaks at Serabit el-Khadim

In the Old Testament, the Mountain of God (Har Ha-Elohim) is referred to by two proper names:

Mount Sinai (Har Sinai)
Horeb (Har Horeb)

Although Eckenstein does not mention them, two mountain peaks at Serabit el-Khadim have attracted the notice of a number of later scholars:

There are, however, two other mountains with interesting names: Jebel Ghorabi [Horeb?] and Jebel Saniya [Sinai], respectively northeast and southeast of the temple site at Serabit. (Barker 226)

Jebel Serabit el-Khadim is about 100 m taller than either of its two prominent neighbours.

Jebel Ghorabi, Jebel Saniya and Jebel Serabit el-Khadim

Critics

Like Eckenstein, Flinders Petrie was reluctant to accept Gebel Musa as the Mountain of God, but he did not agree with her choice, opting instead for Mount Serbal. Lina Eckenstein’s theory has not fared well over the decades and it does not seem to have any notable adherents today. James Hoffmeier is gracious enough to acknowledge it, but also quick to dismiss it:

Lina Eckenstein went so far as to think that biblical Mt. Sinai or Horeb was located at Serabit. This view, however, has not been taken seriously. (Hoffmeier 166)

Why not? It is one thing to dismiss Eckenstein. It is quite another to refute her—and, to my knowledge, that has not been done. Recently, Eckenstein’s theory has been dusted off and examined anew by a number of independent researchers. We have already cited Margaret Barker above. Serabit el-Khadim has also been defended as the Mountain of God on the website Mysterious Origins:

As Eckenstein pointed out, besides fulfilling the geographical criteria as laid out in the Book of Exodus, the Serabit al-Khadim area also has many other outstanding features that the other locations do not share, including 1) the first recorded Semitic inscriptions, 2) a pre-existing temple complex (the Temple of Hathor, built over an even older Semitic temple), 3) a complete mining and manufacturing facility including substantial living quarters, and 4) a metallurgical facility including specialized tools, workstations and a crucible—all of which would have been necessary for Moses to have built the ark, the tabernacle and the associated furniture.

And, of course, the metallurgical facilities would also have made possible the creation of the Golden Calf.

To be continued ...

References

Karl Baedeker (editor), Egypt: Handbook for Travellers, Part Second: Upper Egypt, with Nubia as far as the Second Cataract and the Western Oases, Karl Baedeker, Leipzig (1892)
Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord: Volume 1: The Lady in the Temple, Bloomsbury T&T Clark, London (2012)
Hans Barnard & Kim Duistermaat (editors), The History of the Peoples of the Eastern Desert, Monograph 73, The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, Los Angeles CA (2012)
E A Wallis Budge, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Volume 1, John Murray, London (1920)
Hugh Chisholm (editor), The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, Volume 26, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1911)
Lina Eckenstein, A History of Sinai, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London (1921)
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume 3, Translated from the German by Paul Radin, The Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia (1911)
James K Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)
Gregory Mumford, Tell Ras Budran (Site 345): Defining Egypt’s Eastern Frontier and Mining Operations in South Sinai during the Late Old Kingdom (Early EB IV/MB I), Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Number 342 (May, 2006), pp. 13-67, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL (2006)
William Flinders Petrie, Researches in Sinai, E P Dutton and Company, New York (1906)
Paul Pierret, Vocabulaire Hiéroglyphique, F Vieweg, Paris (1875)