Sinai and Horeb may be separate holy mountains

Flavio Barbiero tells on pp. 64 ff. of his thrilling article: THE CAVE OF TREASURES ON MOUNT HOREB (3) THE CAVE OF TREASURES ON MOUNT HOREB …. The mountain without a name Since our first arrival at Har Karkom, we have been struck by a small mountain that stands isolated in the middle of the valley. Arriving from the Egyptian border, it impressively resembles an Egyptian pyramid, with the horizontal stratifications of the rocks giving a realistic idea of the various orders of stones. …. Figure 27 – Seen from the south the mount appears like an Egyptian pyramid …. Seen from the north, the mountain had a particular shape, like a large crouching dragon, with a large stone slab at the top of its back, which resembled an enormous lectern. That little mountain was the most notable point in the whole valley and could be seen from any direction. It was the constant reference for knowing where one was. With its unmistakable silhouette constantly under the eyes, it was impossible to get lost or go wrong. We were especially attracted by that large flat rock on the top which from below almost looked like a ramp launched towards the sky. One evening, at the usual assembly after dinner, we asked Anati what that mountain was called and what was on the top. "It's a mountain without a name," was the reply. 'Only the quota is shown on the maps: 788 metres. The Israeli cartographers considered it part of the Karkom complex and did not consider giving it a specific name. …. At the plain's beginning, a large triangular stone was stuck in the ground; it showed clear signs of workmanship to give it a cuspidal shape. On its side, there was a flint "eye" set in the rock and underneath some engravings with a mysterious meaning. It was oriented north-south but pointed towards a small escarpment, a few tens of meters ahead, from which a path began that climbed towards the top of the mountain. On the left was the huge boulder … surrounded by stones, most of which were flat and stuck in the ground. It looked like a large altar surrounded by steles, at the foot of the mountain. A stone vaguely shaped like an animal's head, placed on the rock who knows when and by whom, recalled the image of a calf. We called that boulder "the altar of the golden calf ", jokingly at first, but then with more and more conviction. …. While we were in front of the altar, imagining the scene of dancers around it with a golden calf on top, we looked up towards the mountain and gasped: of the large rock that was on top, we could only see the north side, framed by a saddle formed by the gully along which the wadi descended. The front of the rock (Fig. 40 and 41) was surmounted for its entire width by a drywall built with large stone blocks; it looked like the front of a fortress and was visible from across the plain. …. We decided to go up, heading towards the path indicated by the cusp stone. After a few meters of steep climb, we arrived at a false plain sloping gently down from the mountain. At this point the path passed through a gap created in a row of stones lined up along the edge of the escarpment, clearly a boundary line. On the sides of the gap were two steles, about sixty centimetres each, knocked down to the ground and, in the centre of the path, a serpent's head made of flint … facing those who climbed up. We couldn't help but think of the words of the Bible: “And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death." (Ex.19,12; 19,20; 24,1). … Figure 33 - Snake’s head made from a block of flint placed at the beginning of the path that climbs Mount 788 That gap seemed to be the only access to Mount 788 on that side … and that row of stones on the edge, with the two steles on either side, clearly constituted "limits". The serpent's head placed between the steles, in the centre of the path, was an all too evident threat of death addressed to those who climbed it. This is an undeniable indication that this was precisely the mountain to which the words of Exodus referred. …. Heedless of that threat, we followed the path along the slope initially quite gentle. Then the climb became harder, along the wadi, and a last steep climb took us to the top. The Acropolis in the desert This is how Valerio Manfredi describes it in his report later published by the Centro Camuno: "It is an imposing natural acropolis, rising from a mountain located exactly in the centre of the valley and arranged in its longitudinal axis in a north-south direction, surrounded both to the east and to the west by two large wadis. The current access is from the north ... This side is delimited by a drywall of large limestone blocks, superimposed with great skill and interspersed with smaller stones carefully fitted. The height of the wall is overall preserved, and it can be assumed that the original height was 2 meters max. The current maximum height is 1.54 m. The view that is disclosed to those who cross the entrance open into the wall is of extraordinary impact. The platform looks like a natural ramp to the sky, and it is paved by a sort of cyclopean natural tiles. About 14 meters from the entrance there is a small "sacred" complex consisting of four orthostats stuck in the ground, whose largest, in a central position, is 94 cm high and 54 cm wide ... To the north, at a distance of 1 meter from the main orthostat, is placed a stone 70 cm long, 42 cm wide and 37 cm high. An altar? At the top of the platform, 14 meters from the southern end, there is a rectangular construction, 6.24 meters long (E-W side) and 3.24 m wide (east side) and 3.40 m (west side). At the centre of the north side opens the door, the width of cm. 84, limited by a threshold consisting of three boulders next to each other. The southern long wall collapsed inside the structure and the northern long wall outside. The causes of the collapse are not known; recent causes cannot be excluded. The number of blocks that make up the collapse suggests that the original high could reach at least m. 1.50. The roof of the building, if it existed, could probably be made of organic materials such as wood or leather". …. We were fascinated by the sight of the "basolato", a sort of paved floor of large stones encrusted with green-blue lichens. One day, we had the chance to see the Acropolis after a short downpour. The wet lichens that covered the stones had become phosphorescent of an intense blue and offered an incredible, breathtaking spectacle, the same described in Ex 24,9: “Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.” We had never seen anything like it. It instinctively came to us to follow the command of Ex. 3:5: "put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.." It was pleasant to walk barefoot on the smooth stones. It was the only point in that area where it was possible to do so because everywhere else, the ground was covered with sharp stones and thorny shrubs, which made it impossible to walk barefoot. The construction on top of the platform was the temple of the acropolis (so we called it from then on, because it is a natural acropolis in the desert). The collapse of the temple’s walls was not due to natural causes, but to man's work, which was very recent. …. From the top of the acropolis, you can dominate the entire surrounding valley and the desert, in the direction of Egypt, up to the distant horizon; to the north, you can see the edge of Maktesh Ramon and the dome of the Mizpé Ramon Natural History Museum, on the edge of the crater, more than twenty kilometres as the crow flies. From there you can control every corner of the Karkom valley and the entire plateau. No one could approach that mountain without being seen. Isolated as it is in the centre of the valley, with its unmistakable silhouette, it constitutes a unique natural landmark …. … The perfect setting of the events narrated by Exodus As far as we could see at that moment, Mount 788 fully corresponded to the biblical account’s description of Mount Horeb. The limits, the snake head on the access paths, and the impressiveness of the acropolis were important clues, but another thing also proved it. Throughout the valley, you could meet rock engravings everywhere. All the hills around the valley and the valley itself were strewn with rock engravings and on the plateau of Har Karkom there was the largest concentration of the whole Sinai. We expected we would also find many on the 788 because of its central location in the valley. In the following years, my brother and I inspected the mountain from top to bottom, stone by stone, but found no engravings, not even a scratch. That absolute absence was in sheer contrast with the incredible wealth of rock engravings of all kinds and ages, especially BAC, that were all around. "Nobody was interested in that mound", was the joking conclusion of Federico Mailland during one of the usual evening conversations at the camp. For us, however, it was the most … evident proof that that mountain was forbidden and in particular there was a prohibition on representing any living being, as the Bible highlights. In addition to all these indications, the fact remained that the biblical events could be set perfectly there. From the wall of the Acropolis, you could see the plain at the mouth of the wadi, with the great altar of the golden calf. Between the wall and the beginning of the paving, there is a trench, more than one meter deep and about three meters wide, for the entire width of the platform. Here you could hide and store materials without being seen from below. If a series of fires were lit along the wall, the top of the mountain would appear covered in smoke from the plain below. Furthermore, the gorge carved by the wadi that flowed next to the great altar had particular acoustic properties: sounds and noises produced in the gorge were greatly amplified for the benefit of those in the plain in front of the altar. ….