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All questions regarding the actual route of the Israelites and the true Mount Sinai were carefully studied during the Ordnance Survey of the Sinai Desert in 1868–9. The expedition was conducted by Major Henry Spencer Palmer, R.E., and Colonel Sir Charles Wilson, R.E., and the results were published in 1872, by authority of the Treasury, in five massive folio volumes. It may be fairly said that this expedition vindicated the accuracy of the Bible narrative; for the late Prof. E. H. Palmer, who was one of the party, and kept his own daily journal as they went along, assures us that the Bible narrative reads exactly like a daily journal kept by a member of a travelling party. A traveller begins by setting down his first impressions, which are often corrected in his later notes as the result of further experience; and Palmer pointed to such evidences of authenticity in the Bible story.

The results of the Survey of Sinai only concern us here so far as they relate to discoveries of ruins and relics of the past.

The mining district of the peninsula of Sinai became subject to Egyptian rule at a very early time—probably some 3200 years before the Christian era—and the sculptured records of their occupation spread over a period of some 2000 years. On tablets at the mouth of one of the caves at Maghárah, King Senefru and his successor Cheops (who built the Great Pyramid) are represented, the one conquering a shepherd of the East, the other striking to the earth an Asiatic foe. “On the opposite cliffs” (says Major Palmer) “are the remains of the ancient settlement, comprising the dwellings of the miners, who probably were prisoners of war, and the barracks of their military guards. Flint and stone implements, such as arrow-heads and spear-heads, flint chisels and knives, and rude hammer-heads of green-stone, are found amongst these ruins.”

At Sarábit el Khádim, ten or twelve miles further inland, where a new field of mining was discovered about the time that Maghárah began to show signs of exhaustion, there are ruins of two temples, built of well-cut stone, without mortar, the walls and vestibule being covered with Egyptian scenes.

But we are chiefly concerned to know whether any traces eremain of the Israelitish Sojourn, and especially any of a character to throw additional light on Scripture. Of course a wandering people, dwelling in tents, would not leave evidence of their passage in buried cities; and what we have rather to look for is deserted camps. One such camp at least is reasonably identified now as Kibroth Hattaavah, where the people were fed with quails (Num. xi. 33). The Scripture narrative says that they journeyed thence to Hazeroth, and abode there. About thirty miles north-east of Jebel Musa, at a spot called Erweis el Ebeirig, are some old stone remains to which a legend attaches which very strikingly recalls the Scripture statement, and may very possibly contain some grain of truth. “These ruins” (say the Arabs) “are the remains of a large pilgrim or Hajj caravan, which in remote ages stopped here on the way to Hazeroth, and was afterwards lost in the Tih, and never again heard of.” Hazeroth, the name of which still survives in ’Ain Hudherah, is fifteen miles further on towards ’Akabah. The Bádiet et Tih is by interpretation the wilderness of the wanderings, and is a sort of peninsula of higher ground which projects down into the Sinai desert from the north. Major Palmer tells us that the ruins at Erweis el Ebeirig form a class by themselves, differing from all other ancient remains hitherto found in the peninsula. Though there are a few stone houses, the remains consist chiefly of a great number of small enclosures of stone, mostly circular, and extending over several square miles of country. The stones are not set on end; their arrangement is not unlike that which may be seen on spots where an Arab encampment has been, though they certainly cannot be taken for Arab remains. The large enclosures intended for important personages, and the hearths or fire-places, can still be distinctly traced, showing conclusively that it is a large deserted camp. In the neighbourhood, but beyond the camp area, are a number of stone heaps, which, from their shape and position, are probably burial places without the camp, though none have yet been examined.

Between the Tih wilderness and Judea, is the Negeb or “South Country” of Scripture, now a deserted and barren wilderness, but shown by Professor E. H. Palmer to be full of the most interesting traces of former inhabitants and cultivation. In the Scripture narrative of the wanderings we read about Kadesh Barnea, where Miriam died, and whence the spies went up to Eshkol and obtained the grapes. The identification of Kadesh Barnea had long been difficult and disputed, until it was discovered, in the year 1840, by Dr Rowlands to be ’Ain Gadis (or Qades) in Jebel Magráh, on the south-west frontier of the Negeb. The name Gadis is identical in meaning and etymology with the Kadesh of the Bible, while the word ’Ain means a fountain; so that Kadesh Barnea can scarcely be said to have changed its name. The place is a picturesque oasis, and from under a ragged spur of solid rock, regarded by Rowlands as “the cliff” smitten by Moses, there issues an abundant stream. Professor Palmer, visiting the district some thirty years after, failed to find this great spring, but it was discovered again by Rev. F. W. Holland in 1878, and by Dr Clay Trumbull of America in 1881; and Dr Trumbull’s book on Kadesh Barnea is now the fullest source of information.

Mr Holland’s record of the Sinai Survey Expedition is printed at the end of the volume on the “Recovery of Jerusalem,” published by the Palestine Exploration Fund. Mr Holland endeavours to trace the route of the Israelites, to fix the stations, to identify the spot where the battle of Rephidim was fought, and to make more intelligible the entire story. Traditions of the passage of the children of Israel through the country are common enough, he says. The physical conditions of the country are such as to render it quite possible that the events recorded in the Book of Exodus occurred there. The route of the Israelites has not indeed been laid down with absolute certainty, but much light has undoubtedly been thrown upon it by the explorations that have been made. Mr Holland concludes by declaring that “not a single member of the expedition returned home without feeling more firmly convinced than ever of the truth of that sacred history which he found illustrated and confirmed by the natural features of the desert. The mountains and valleys, the very rocks, barren and sun-scorched as they now are, seem to furnish evidences, which none who behold them can gainsay, that this was that ‘great and terrible wilderness’ through which Moses, under God’s direction, led His people.”

[Authorities and Sources:—“Explorations in the Peninsula of Sinai.” By Rev. F. W. Holland (in volume on the “Recovery of Jerusalem”). “Sinai.” By Major H. S. Palmer. “The Desert of the Exodus.” By Professor E. H. Palmer. “The Desert of the Tih.” By Prof. E. H. Palmer (in the volume of Special Papers, P. E. Fund.)]

[Nothing is said in this section about the Sinaitic Inscriptions, because it has long ago been settled by scholars that they are Nabathean pilgrim texts of the third and fourth centuries, A.D., written by travellers who were then visiting the Sinai convent and the hermitage of Wâdy Feirân, and the traders who passed from Petra on the way to Egypt. They were first read by Beer in 1840, and the authoritative work upon them is that of Levy in 1860. In 1868–9, Prof. E. H. Palmer confirmed their results. For further references see Major Conder in Quarterly Statement, Jan. 1892.]