80 PROF. FLINDERS PETRIE, D.C.L.^ ON RESEARCHES IN SINAI. 



agree with Mr. Currelly in his view that Gehel Serbal is the 

 mount from which the Law was delivered (Ch. xvii, p. 247). I 

 am in accord with him, and the distinguished travellers above 

 named, in supposing that after the Israelites left their camp by 

 the Eed Sea, on the plain of El Markha, they took the route 

 through the AVady Feirfm, even to this day well watered and 

 green with palms and herbage : but I fail to see why, if this were 

 the case, Jebel Serbal was the mount of the Law, or Horeb. 

 The Wady Feiran, altliough it passes along the northern spurs 

 of Ser-bal, was not, as Mr. Currelly supposes, the camping ground 

 of the host, but only their line of march towards the Mount of 

 the Law, or J. Musa. When our party visited it in 1883, we 

 encamped in the valley at its base and ascended to its summit, 

 and it appeared to present all the conditfons required by the 

 narrative, of which, as Mr. Currelly remarks, water supply is 

 the most important. This is here practically abundant. There 

 is not only the fine cascade descending from the little natural 

 basin of water below the summit, but four or five perennial 

 streams fed by tlie melting snow of winter.* Perhaps the 

 most striking point of identification is the lias Sufsafeh, tlie 

 lofty vertical cliff at the head of the valley of encampment 

 called the W. el Deir, and answering to the " Mount that 

 might be touched," as it forms the base of Sinai, and shuts oft 

 the view of the summit from occupants in the phiin ; con- 

 ditions which literally agree with the narrative in Exodus.t 

 As I have more fully dealt with this subject in Movnt Seir, 

 and also in my paper read before tliis Institute, I will not 

 further discuss this position, but will only add that notliing has 

 ])een M-ritten which 1 have seen, including the essay by I'rofessor 

 Sayce, " Where is Mount Sinai ?" which induces me to change the 

 opinion formed on the spot, that Jebel Musa, the traditicmal 

 site of the Mount of the Law, is the true site.:]: 



* Pkffs. Gcol. of Arabia Petnm, pp. 25, 26 ; .Vount Sei)\ p]). 58, 51). 



t Sayce tried to prove that tlie Mount of the Law was situated some- 

 where amongst tlie Edomite mountains, east of the Arabah. This view is 

 still nioie inijn-obable than that of Currelly. 



I The impression ])roduced on the writer's mind by the scene may here 

 be quoted : " We marched up the wide plain of W. es Sheikh, and after- 

 wards turning to the right, entered the W. el Deii', when we came in 

 front of the grand cHtfs of Has Sufsafeh, rising abruptly from the plain 

 and intersected by several deep clefts ... I felt satisfied that here was 

 the cam])ing ground of Israel, and in front ' the Mount of the Law.'" 

 Jfount Heir, p. 51. 



