Har Karkom (name Hebrew which means " Mountain of Safran") or in the past Djebel Ideid (name Arab which means " Mountain of Célébrations" or " Mountain of Multitudes") is an archeological site which belongs to the important whole of the sites of the the Sinai. This site, which is in the northern part of the unit, includes/understands a mountain and valleys. The sites of the the Sinai go back to Paleolithic and multiply for the predynastic period. According to the detailed inventory of the sites and worships which proceed there makes by Dominique Valbelle, the most important sites are along the Mediterranean coastline and in the cupriferous zone of the southernmost mountains: Har Karkom is nowhere mentioned (neither the site, nor the worship) in this article of official the " Dictionary of Antiquité".
It is the Italian paléo-ethnologist Emmanuel Anati which explored this site and made known it general public. According to its analysis, it would be about the Mont the Sinai mentioned in the Bible. The official Web site of the project Har Karkom presents the work of ground, supports that the site was used as place of worship and gives the reasons for which Anati thinks that it is about the Mont the Sinai.
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Note: all that follows is dependant on the site harkarkom.com and of work of Emmanuel Anati
Archaeological data of the work of ground
Emmanuel Anati obtained a concession of search for 200km ² around Har Karkom and it led there, from 1980,15 excavation campaigns.
On the plate (4km X 2,5km) which constitutes the top of the mountain, it finds sites paleolithic, of which oldest goes back to 40 000 years, of many Flints cut on the spot manufactured (the flint is abundant there and of excellent quality) as well as traces of dwellings (hearths). In addition, of many drawn up stones, Anthropomorphic S or Zoomorphe S, of which some were improved, signs a more recent activity, Bronze Age, from -4000 to -2000. Stones are often laid out in circles and there exists, also, of alignments forming of large drawings. Anati locates sanctuaries, approximately 100, with large drawn up stones, the Bronze Age (- 4000 to -2000), oldest dating from the Neolithic (- 8000). The site comprises, moreover, of many rupestral engravings (40 000) going back to -2500 to -2000.
In bottom in the surrounding valleys, it locates traces of campings, as well as the traces of 150 villages of the paleolithic superior and 150 villages of the Bronze Age.
The site is completely abandoned for all the period between -1950 and -1000. Emmanuel Anati allots this fact to a climate change, one period of great dryness for all the area, whose geology preserved traces elsewhere also (Dead Sea, the Sahara). One finds a modest activity with the Âge of iron (campings of caravans), then with the Middle Ages (300 agricultural villages in the valleys). Then, all is abandoned.
Crowned character of the mountain
According to Emmanuel Anati, Har Karkom with the Bronze Age is a crowned mountain, an important place of worship. The principal argument. No specialized professional review (Biblical Arcæologist, Near Eastern Archæology, Bulletin off the American Schools off Eastern Research, Raising, Antiquity, Radiocarbon, Science, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv) forever published the theory of Emmanuel Anati.
Emmanuel Anati is also absent from a collective work on the topic Bible and Archéologie , carried out today by professionals confronting their work, and whose all 27 contribution was published in a book of 448 pages. None the contributions to the book mentions the existence of its theory.
Main arguments presented by Anati
In the rock edge of the plate exists a small cave which was inhabited around -2125 (Carbon dating, with a margin of 50 years, of the remainders of food). The situation of the cave, close to the top, exceptional according to Emmanuel Anati, with its use as dwelling, is enough to indicate that it is about the cave of Moïse.Cependant, no data being attached to the name even Brace is mentioned in the Web site. The images of the cave presented by the Web site show that it is located in the horizontal rock strata which girdle all the summit plate. However, Anati does not announce the existence of these horizontal rock strata, geological configuration that each one could observe in other places, and does not comment on the possibility that the erosion of one of the layers in such configurations gives rise to natural shelters.
In the valley a sanctuary with twelve large drawn up stones is (site HK 52, figure 48). This number twelve indicates, according to Emmanuel Anati, that they are the twelve tribes of Israel and the proximity of the sanctuary with a site of camping indicates, according to him, that it is about the place from which Moïse climbed the mountain. However, the Web site shows the images of other sanctuaries of Har Karkom, comprising a number of large drawn up stones different from twelve. Anati does not consider particular significance for these stones of number different from twelve.
An engraving (site HK32, figure 152) watch the drawing of a logical snake of way while following the diagram 2 (God) + 6 (company) + 2 (individual).
Contrary to the precedent, this drawing does not comprise any sign of writing nor ideogram which would indicate that this drawing can be in connection with a text. Drawings comprising of the boxes are in addition known in archeology: for example, the sign-word of the squared ground is used to indicate the territory of name Egyptian, with 10 boxes him too.
On the whole of rupestral engravings of the site (40 000. The argumentation of Anati retains certain data ( Goshen , whose precise site however remains not identified: the chart drawn by Anati shows only the area of Goshen ) but from others (in particular pi-Ramsès and Pithom eliminates some, which however are generally regarded as very important.
If the Sinai Mount is Har Karkom, it is necessary to seek Moïse 1000 years before Ramessides
One knows that a whole series of considerations result in seeking the possible traces of Brace towards -1300 or -1200, under Ramessides. If it is considered that the Mont the Sinai is Har Karkom, it is not possible any more to seek Moïse towards -1300 or -1200, since, at that time, the crowned mountain is deserted. For this only reason, it is imperative, in the theory of Anati and if the biblical account of the Exodus has a historical reality, to earlier locate it approximately 1000 years, towards -2200. Anati shows (cf below) that certain objections with the historical reality of the account fall then.
Emmanuel Anati points out it: archeology established that no conquest of Jericho, neither of Have, nor of Arad took place with recent Bronze: Jericho and Have were flourishing with the third millennium before J.C…./… but, if the identification of the archeological sites is correct, none of these sites existed in XIIIe century before J.C., nor a few centuries before or after… When archeology did not find any trace of the old Bronze Age in Jericho, etc…/… When the excavations did not find any vestige of the late Bronze Age with Have, the same explanations were advanced… Arad was protected by important fortifications with the old Bronze Age, but the city did not exist with the late Bronze Age. .
In the same way for Kadesh-Barnéa: archeology established that nobody remained there with recent Bronze, but that a population lived with old Bronze there.
Certain impossibilities of recent Bronze recalled above (Jericho, Have, Arad, Kadesh-Barnéa) fall indeed if one places Moïse 1000 years before Ramessides.
Problems arising from the theory of Anati
Contrary, the history of the Hebrews between Josué and the Book of the Judges being stretched over 1000 years, between the moment of the conquest of Canaan (- 2200) and the reigns of David and Solomon (- 1000), of multiple impossibilities are drawn up.
- They are the Hyksôs, not the Hebrew , which dominate the plains of Syro-Palestine at the time of Hyksôs. Although certain common points between the stay of Hyksôs in Egypt and the biblical account of the stay of the Hebrews are raised by the archeologists, none of them does not confuse Hyksôs with the Hebrews.
- In fact the Égyptiens, starting from Thoutmosis III, impose their domination uncontested on the whole of Canaan.
- the Lettres of Amarna, written under Akhénaton do not evoke the Hebrews in Canaan.
- the first Jews are installed on the high plateaus only starting from -1200, in very small number, which seems incompatible with a presence of the Hebrew in Canaan before with -1200.citons among other Israel Finkelstein,
Conclusions of Anati
Emmanuel Anati does not think of having solved the problem of the historicity of the Bible:
- the fact that the Bible does not make any allusion to Hyksôs nor with the events reported in the Lettres of Amarna the conduit to put forth the assumption that the Hebraic Bible could have comprised a book, now lost, between the Livre of Josué and the Livre of the Judges.
- the fact, perhaps, of having identified places and actor-keys of the biblical account, does not prevent a substantial difference between the chronology suggested by the Bible, presenting the events like being produced on some human generations, and its own conclusions, namely that those would have been held over one period extending from -2200 to -1200. This difference would thus not make it possible to assign a precise historical reality to him. According to its formula:
Reception of this thesis
The Observatore romano , official body of the Vatican, recognized on January 5th, 1999, after a crowned excavation campaign of success in 1998, the validity of its archaeological work and encouraged the archeologist to continue his work
For Jean-Baptiste Humbert, archeologist at the biblical School of Jerusalem, " this thesis is anachronistic. Its dating of the Exodus precedes 2000 years the drafting of Bible." Emmanuel Anati is based on the old oral traditions of the people of the desert and one reinterpretation at the time of the drafting of the texts. Jean-Baptiste Humbert, agrees. " … but the phenomenon is not original in oneself. With the Middle Ages, in France, one thus imagined several legends to explain the origin of the cave to the Fairies . "
For Ora Lipschitz, Israeli specialist in Biblical story:
- " the method consisting in measuring the age of the patina which recovers the engraved stones is indeed very approximative". It specifies that indeed these vestiges concentrent" …. in an area which can correspond to that of the biblical account… But what does that prove? Nothing, in fact. Har Karkom could be the Sinai mount, just like 300 or 400 other tops in the area! "
- " the Bible is initially a text made up and recomposed during hundreds of years by many authors from the often different and contradictory points of view… On its subject, better speech of literature, legend or tale would be worth, rather than of history. It is thus futile to wonder which are the relations between this work and the vestiges archaeological ".
Israel Finkelstein, in an article published by the BAR in 1988 also challenges the thesis of Anati, pointing out that of the whole of the toponyms mentioned by the Bible, only Kadeh-Barnea and Etzion-Geber were identified; one can draw from the Bible no real indication on the way borrowed by the Jews. One can thus trust with no modern name, which, according to Finkelstein, invalidates the indices raised by Anati. Anati also uses names such as Cin or Paran to name places close to Har Karkom, without taking account of problems involved in their localization. Moreover, Finkelstein estimates that Tanakh was written centuries after the events which it describes, and would not have the secondary historical value of source which is classically allotted to him. He writes: In short, one does not find in this book one ounce of the knowledge to make elementary which this scientific discipline requires which is archeology.
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