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Here is the full text of an article in the Jerusalem Post,
https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Vatican-to-accept-that-Mt-Sinai-is-in-Negev-not-Egypt
June 1, 110 Tuesday 27 Sivan 3870 20:15 IST
Photo by: Courtesy
By STEVE LINDE
30/05/2010‘I‘m sure Karkom is the real mountain of God,’ Prof. Emmanuel Anati declares.
‘Israel should be proud.’
It has taken him more than a decade, but Italian-Israeli archeologist Prof. Emmanuel Anati now believes his
controversial view that the biblical Mount Sinai is in Israel’s Negev desert rather than Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula
will soon be adopted by the Vatican.
On Friday, he presented his theory in the form of a new book at a seminar at the Theological Seminary in
the northeastern Italian city of Vicenza.
“Actually it’s not a theory, it’s a reality. I’m sure of it, Anati told The Jerusalem Post by telephone from his
home in Capo di Ponte. “My archeological discoveries at Har Karkom over many years and my close reading
of the Bible leave me with no doubt that it is the real Mount Sinai. I’m now sure that Karkom is the real
mountain of God.”
In 2001, Anati published the English edition of a book that was first issued in Italian two years earlier and
titled The Riddle of Mount Sinai – Archaeological Discoveries at Har Karkom. In the book, he postulated that
Karkom, 25 km. from the Ramon Crater, was probably the peak at which Moses received the Ten
Commandments – and not the summit in southern Sinai where Santa Catarina (Saint Catherine’s
Monastery) stands.
“I know this is revolutionary,” he conceded. “I’m not only changing the location, but I’m moving Mount Sinai
to Israel, and I’m sure it will anger the Egyptians. But Israel should be proud of this. The Negev is empty
and should be developed.”
“I’m also changing the date of the Exodus from Egypt to some 1,000 years earlier than previously thought,”
he added. “I know this will drive everyone crazy. But I am right. I’m sure of it.”
Anati reasoned that if the account in the Book of Exodus was historically accurate, it must refer to the third
millennium BCE – and more precisely to the period between 2200 and 2000 BCE.
Jewish tradition puts the Exodus around the year
1313 BCE. According to Catholic tradition, Helena of Constantinople – the mother of Emperor Constantine
credited with finding the relics of Jesus’s cross – determined the location of Mount Sinai and ordered the
construction of a chapel at the site (sometimes referred to as the Chapel of Saint Helen) in about 330 CE.
According to Anati, however, an abundance of archeological evidence showed that Mount Karkom had been
a holy place for all desert peoples, and not just the Jews, which substantiated his case.
He said more than 1,200 finds at Karkom – including sanctuaries, altars, rock paintings and a large tablet
resembling the Ten Commandments – indicated that it had been considered a sacred mountain in the Middle
Bronze Age. In addition, he said, the topography of its plateau perfectly reflected that of the biblical Mount
Sinai.
Finally, he concluded, the biblical tale clearly
backed up his geographic argument.“When the Children of Israel left Egypt, they reached the Arava. They couldn’t have been in Santa
[Catarina], because it says in the Bible that they reached Nahal Tzin, and moved on to Hebron,” Anati said.
“The whole story of receiving the Torah must have taken place in the Negev. The Children of Israel
wandered in the north and not the south, in the Negev and not the Sinai.”
He was just as certain that the Holy See would officially sanction his stance, and that millions of Catholic
pilgrims could soon be visiting Mount Karkom instead of Mount Sinai.
“Actually, they have already accepted my theory,” he said. “They are already organizing pilgrimages. There
is already a plan, and I have meetings scheduled with theologians and others, including the Vatican
pilgrimage office. They want to start pilgrimages to Karkom as soon as next year.”
Anati said he was aware that he had his detractors, especially among archeologists in Israel, several of
whom were interviewed refuting his claims on a Channel 1 Mabat Sheni documentary aired on Wednesday
night.
“I know there are all kinds of people – including professors – who resist my theory, and it’s natural that this
occurs,” he said. “I urge them all to read my book and study the evidence before criticizing me.”
Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Israel Finkelstein, a world-renowned expert on the subject, said he could not
accept Anati’s hypothesis.
“I do not see any connection between the third millennium BCE finds at Har Karkom and the Exodus story.
The latter was put in writing not before the 7th or 6th centuries BCE, and as such depicts realities which are
many centuries later than the finds of Har Karkom,” Finkelstein told the Post. “Roaming the desert with the
Bible in one hand and the spade in the other is a 19th-century endeavor which has no place in modern
scholarship.”
Anati said it had taken the Catholic Church several years to be persuaded by his argument, and recognition
had been a slow process.
“About three-and-a-half years ago, I had a telephone call from the Vatican that a priest of high standing
wanted to meet with me, and he arrived here with a driver. I live 500 km. from Rome, and he sat with me for
a whole day and asked me a lot of questions,” Anati recalled.
“Then he disappeared, and after about a year, a group of theologians from the Catholic Church appeared
and wanted to investigate the matter more deeply. Seven theologians sat here for the whole day, and I later
met with them four times.
“Six months ago they spent four days with me at Karkom, and as a result of this, the Vatican publisher –
Edizioni Messaggero Padova – asked me to write up my findings. I revised and updated my book, and they
have now published it in Italian, changing the title to The Rediscovery of Mount Sinai.”
“Twenty years ago, I had a hunch that Har
Karkom was the real Mount Sinai,” Anati said.
“Three years ago I was convinced I was correct. Today I know I’m right.”
There was no official Vatican response to Anati’s claims, nor was there an
immediate reaction from the Egyptians.
Anati was born in Florence in 1930 to Jewish
parents, and soon after the establishment of Israel, he moved to Jerusalem and
received a bachelor’s degree in archeology from the Hebrew University. He later
became a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard and was awarded a doctorate at the Sorbonne.
Fluent in Hebrew, he taught prehistory at Tel Aviv University and conducted extensive research in the
Negev.Upon his return to Italy, he founded the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici in Capo di Ponte in 1964, and he
remains its executive director today. It is believed to be the only institute in the world that specializes in
prehistoric art.
Anati’s study of rock paintings in Valcamonica
spurred UNESCO to include the alpine valley in its list of World Cultural Heritage sites.
Tal Gottesman contributed to this report.
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