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APPENDIX B
“ANCIENT MONUMENTS AND HOLY WRIT”
THE MOUNTAIN CEMETERY OF SARBUT-EL-KHADEM
THE account of the discovery and identification of the place,, called
Kibroth-hattaavah (i.e., The Graves of Lust), f73 by Professor E. H.
Palmer, while engaged in “The Sinai Survey,” is given in his valuable work,
“The Desert of the Exodus,” and also in Mr. Walter Besant’s “Life and
Achievements of E. H. Palmer.” The following extract from the former
work is to be found in Lange’s Commentary on Numbers.
“A little further on, and upon the watershed of Wadyel Hebeibeh, we came
to some remains which, although they had hitherto escaped even a passing
notice from previous travelers, proved to be among the most interesting in
the country. The piece of elevated ground which forms this water-shed is
called by the Arabs Erwais el Ebeirig, and is covered with small enclosures
of stones. These are evidently the remains of a large encampment; but they
differ essentially in their arrangement from any others which I have. seen in
Sinai or elsewhere in Arabia; and on the summit of a small hill on the right
is an erection of rough stones surmounted by a conspicuous white block of
pyramidal shape. These remains extend for miles around, and, on
examining them more closely during at second visit to the Peninsula with
Mr. Drake, we found our first impressions fully confirmed, and collected
abundant proofs that it was in reality a deserted camp. The small stones
which formerly served, as they do in the present day, for hearths, in manly
places still showed signs of the action of fire; and on digging beneath the
surface we found pieces of charcoal in great abundance.
“Here and there were larger enclosures marking the encampment of some
person more important than the rest, and just outside the camp were a
number of stone heaps, which, from their shape and position could be
nothing else but graves. The site is a most convenient one, and admirably
suited for the assembling of a large concourse of people. Arab tradition
declares these curious remains to be ‘the relics of a large Pilgrim or Hajj
caravan, who, in remote ages, pitched their tents at this spot on their way
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to ‘Ain Hudherah, and who were soon afterwards lost: in the desert of the
Tih [or “Wilderness of the Wanderings”], and never heard of again.’
“For various reasons I am inclined to believe that this legend is authentic,
that it refers to the Israelites, and that we have in the scattered stones of
Erweis el Ebeirig real traces of the Exodus ..... These considerations ....
and these mysterious graves outside of the camp, to my mind prove
conclusively the identity of the spot with the scene of the awful plague by
which the Lord punished the greed and discontent of His people.”
In Mr. Spurgeon’s “Treasury of David,” vol. 3, in the “Explanatory Notes”
on Psa_78:27-31 (P. 462), there is a long quotation from a writer who
has devoted much time, and pains to the subject of Sinai and its Israelite
monuments, namely, the Revelation Charles Forster, B.D., author of “The
Voice of Israel from the Rocks of Sinai,” “Sinai Photographed,” and
“Israel in the Wilderness.” In the latter there are engravings of hieroglyphic
tablets from the mountain cemetery of Sarbut-el-Khadem, and
“decipherments” of them. f74 We note, in passing, that “the only difference
between the Scriptural and Arabic names of the locality is, that Moses
named it from the graves, the Arabs from the plague stroke ....In a word:
the Hebrew, Kibroth-Hattaavah, signifies ‘the graves of lust” the Arabic,
Sarbut-el-Khadem signifies, ‘the heaven-sent plague-stroke of the
ancients.’“
“If,” says Mr. Forster, “the cemetery on Sarbut-el-Khadem be, what all the
antecedent evidences combine to indicate, the workmanship of the
Israelites (a chief burial-ground of their fatal encampment at Kibroth-
Hattaavah), it may most reasonably be expected that its monuments shall
contain symbolic representations of the miracle of the ‘feathered fowls,’
and of the awful plague which followed it,, Now Niebuhr happily enables
us to meet this just expectation by his copies of the hieroglyphics on three
of those tombstones, published in the 65th and 66th Plates of his first
volume, and prefaced Plate 64 by a plan of the Cemetery itself which is of
more value than any or all subsequent descriptions ....
“It was discovered by the present writer (as stated in: his ‘Voice of Israel,’
pp. 98- 100) on the evidence of no less than four Sinaitic inscriptions, that
the birds of the miracle, named by Moses, generically wlv, salu, and by the
Psalmist, still more generally, pnk pw[, awf caneph, ‘winged fowls,’ or
more correctly, ‘long-winged fowls’ (Psa_78:27), were not (as rendered
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by all our versions, ancient and modern) ‘quails,’ but a crane-like red bird
resembling a goose, named in the Arabic nuham. The discovery .....
received subsequently a singular and signal corroboration from the further
discovery, by Dean Stanley, and previously by Schubert, of immense flocks
of these very nuhams on the reputed scene of the miracle at Kibroth-
Hattaavah. f75 With these antecedents in his mind, the reader will now turn
to the three monuments copied by Niebuhr in the cemetery of Sarbut-el-
Khadem. He will at once see that a crane-like bird resembling a goose, with
slender body and long legs, is the leading hieroglyphic symbol in all the
three tablets. No fewer than twenty-five of these symbolic birds occur in
the first, ten in the second, and fifteen in the third tablet. The goose
appears occasionally, but the principal specimens have the air of the goose,
but the form of the crane. In a word, they are the very species of bird seen
by Dean Stanley, both at this point of Sinai, and at the first cataract of the
Nile; and which constantly occur also in Egyptian monuments: as though
the very food of Egypt, after which the Israelites lusted, was sent to be at
once their prey and their plague.
“The reader has here before him the irrefragable fact that the very birds
which by every kind of evidence stand identified with the salus, or longlegged
and long-winged fowls of the miracle, are the very birds depicted on
the tombstones of Sarbul-el-Khadem, both standing, flying, and apparently
even trussed and cooked. In a word, they are so depicted as to make them
conspicuously the leading symbol on those stones. The impartial reader
might safely be left to draw his own inference; for the inevitable inference
is, that if symbolic writing be meant to convey any meaning at all, and if its
meaning can ever be educed from the collation of the symbols with a
known event of Scripture history in a known locality, these tombstones
record the miracle of the ‘feathered fowls,’ and stand over the graves of
the gluttons who consumed them!”
In the “Treasury of David,” the selection of the deciphered hieroglyphics is
from Niebuhr’s 66th plate. The following is the “decipherment” thereof: —
“The sleepy owl, emblem of death, God sends destruction among them.
“The bow arrests the birds on the wing congregated.
“They make ready ,cooking the flying prey, nourished and sustained by it ‘for
a whole month,’ spreading it out.
“Arrest the prey, the messengers of death swift flying.”
We subjoin a few lines from plate 65: —
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“With throats diseased and loaded stomachs, sink down kneeling on both
knees, ‘the mixed multitude,’ depraved doomed.
“The owl ill-omened, sudden death, the marrow corrupted from greedily
devouring the cranes.
By the fat cranes visits with punishment God, causing ulcerations plaguing to
madness.
The sepulcher entombs the fugitives. The cranes, sea-brought, black and
white, prepare for flight, spreading their wings.”
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THE MOABITE STONE — THE ROCK OF
BEHISTUN. — THE ROSETTA STONE.
SINCE the lecture was delivered, many books have been issued — some in
a cheap and popular form — containing the most complete information
respecting the Moabite Stone and other buried and forgotten witnesses
who have come forth from their silent graves to attest the truth of Holy
Scripture. Therefore it is not necessary that we should furnish extracts
from works accessible to all. The following list may be useful to some of
our readers: —
GRAVEN IN THE ROCK; or, the Historical Accuracy of the Bible
Confirmed by Reference to the Assyrian and Egyptian Sculptures in the
British Museum and elsewhere. By the Reverend Dr. SAMUEL KINNS,
F.R.A.S., etc. With Numerous Engravings. Cassell & Company.
NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND. By B. T. A.
EVETTS. Illustrated. Cassell & Company.
THE MOABITE STONE. Although it does not come under the head of
“cheap” or “popular,” the work to which the first place must be given as a
monograph upon this remarkable monument is the work of the learned Dr.
GINSBURG, entitled, “THE MOABITE STONE. A FACSIMILE OF THE
ORIGINAL INSCRIPTION, with an English Translation, and a Historical and
Critical Commentary.” Longmans. 1870.
THE MOABITE STONE. The Substance of Two Lectures By W.
PAKENHAM WALSH, D.D., Bishop of Ossory. Illustrated. Nisbet & Co.
1883. One Shilling.
ANCIENT MONUMENTS AND HOLY WRIT. Same Author, Publishers,
and price. This little book embraces; particulars of the Rosetta and Moabite
slabs, and other equally interesting monuments.
ECHOES OF BIBLE HISTORY is another book by Bishop WALSH,
containing not a little of the information in his smaller books, with
additional matter. Crown 8vo. Three Shillings and Sixpence. Published by
the Church of England Sunday School Institute.
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BY-PATHS OF BIBLE KNOWLEDGE. In this admirable series,
published by the Religious Tract Society, there are several works devoted
to the elucidation and confirmation of the Word of God from the ancient
stone monuments. We cannot too highly recommend the following, among
others: — -
FRESH LIGHT FROM THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS,
by Professor Sayce, M.A., and
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY, by E. A. Wallis
Budge, M.A.
THE WITNESSES OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS to the Old Testament
Scriptures (Present Day Tracts, No. 32)., by Professor SAYCE, is a marvel
of condensation. Price Fourpence.
THE OXFORD HELPS to the Study of the Bible, published by Mr.
Frowde, must have a place in this list, although too well known to need a
lengthy notice.
APPENDIX B — THE MOUNTAIN CEMETARY
ft73 Num_11:4, Num_11:18-20, Num_11:31-34; Psa_78:26-31.
ft74 By the courtesy of Messrs. R. Bentley & Son, we are enabled to give
some lines from one of the hieroglyphic tablets, and lengthy extracts from
Mr. Forster’s interesting description of the “Graves of Lust.”
ft75 See Stanley’s “Sinai and Palestine,” pp, 81-83.