Acknowledgements | 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 Har Karkom being the Biblical Mount Sinai. HK Survey | Hypothesis | except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages and reproduce not more than Edizioni del Centro, 25044 Capo di Ponte, Valcamonica (BS), Italy 500-599 | HK Rock Art | Anati instead places the Exodus, based on other archaeological evidence, between 2350 and 2000 BC.[3]. Mount Sinai | The site was called Jebel Ideid, according to Bedouin guides, in Arabic the name may mean "Mountain of Celebration" or "Mountain of the Multitude". Revisionist chronologies are not new but have been roundly rejected by trained historians, biblical scholars, and archaeologists. Another problem for Anati’s theory is that if this mountain marks the place where Israel received the tablets with the ten commandments, in what language would they have been written between 2200 and 2000 b.c.? 800-899 | No part of this web site may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, Edizioni | As a student he was carrying on a survey of rock art and came across a major concentration of rock art on a mountain in the southern Negev desert of Israel. Links. Landscape | Following this theory, Emmanuel Anati excavated at the mountain, and discovered that it was a major paleolithiccult centre, wit… Har Karkom Survey HK Periods analysis BK Periods analysis HK Rock Art analysis Glossary The detailed corpus description of over 1200 archeological sites found at Har Karkom (HK) and Beer Karkom (BK) - By site number. The Canaanite alphabetic script, from which the Hebrew script was borrowed, was still developing around 1800 b.c. #1 Har Karkom Unclassified Updated: 2019-09-24 Although, on the basis of his findings, Anati advocates the identification of Har Karkom with Mount Sinai, the peak of religious activity at the site may date to 2350-2000 BC, and the mountain appears to have been abandoned perhaps between 1950 and 1000 BC the exodus is … 300-399 | One early critic was Israel Finkelstein, who penned a devastating review.81 He rightly rejects Anati’s conclusions, because the type of Early Bronze Age cultic installations discovered at Har Karkom have also been found in significant numbers in the southern desert, Negev, and Sinai—so Anati’s finds are not unique, and Finkelstein is appalled by Anati’s chronological revisionism. The proposed identification opened up a wide debate which is still in progress. A focal characteristic is the flint gravel, or hammada, that covers vast surfaces of the site. From the Survey report of Har Karkom map. The valleys have numerous remains of stone built basements of huts and of entire villages (likely to have inspired the Arabic name). Har Karkom had been a religious high place in the past. Rock Art | In 1980, as head of the Italian Archaeological Expedition to Israel, we came back to this mountain to start an archaeological survey in a cooperation project between the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici, the Israel Department of Antiquities and the Archaeological Survey of Israel, supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. History | Exegesis | Around the mountain there are valleys crossed by wadis. However, no archaeological evidence has been supported by scholars to maintain a date of 1600-1200 BC. two illustrations in a review to be published in a magazine, newspaper or web review. Har Karkom (Karkom Har) is a mountain (an elevation standing high above the surrounding area with small summit area, steep slopes and local relief of 300m or more) and has the latitude of 30.2875 and longitude of 34.7425. In the BAC period (Bronze Age Complex, includes Chalcolithic, Early Bronze age and Middle Bronze age I) the plateau has a concentration of altars, pillars and other cult sites. In 1983, after four years of archaeological survey, we advanced the hypothesis that this mountain might be identified with the biblical Mount Sinai.