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58 The Great Ash Heap in the Wilderness!

more eas ily. We must, there fore, sup pose A BED OF ASHES AT LEAST 100 X 50 FT.,
VERY PROBABLY MUCH WIDER, and vary ing from 3 to 18 in. thick, in spite of all the
de nu da tion which took place BEFORE THE XVIIIth DYNASTY. THERE MUST BE
NOW ON THE GROUND ABOUT FIFTY TONS OF ASHES, AND THESE ARE
PROBABLY THE RESIDUE OF SOME HUNDREDS OF TONS....

What, then, is the mean ing of this great bed of ashes? -- Re searches in Si nai, p.99.

Yes, what in deed! Many dif fer ent the o ries have been ta bled, ALL of them to tally un sat is -
fac tory. Petrie men tions some of them:

One sug ges tion was that it was the re mains of smelt ing
works. But smelt ing else where does not leave any such
loose white ashes; on the con trary, it pro duces a dense
black slag. Also, there is no sup ply of cop per ore at that
level, nor within some miles dis tance, and the site is very
in ac ces si ble for bring ing up ma te ri als. More over, there
is no sup ply of fuel up on the pla teau; whereas the ore
has been else where trans ported to val leys and plains
where fuel could be ob tained, as at the Wady Nasb,
Wady Gharandel, and El Markha. The state ment of
Lepsius and oth ers that there are beds of slag near the
tem ple is an en tire mis take, due to ig no rance of min er al -
ogy; the black masses are nat u ral strata of iron ore, and
not ar ti fi cial cop per slag. An other sug ges tion was that
they were like the beds of ashes near Je ru sa lem, which
were sup posed to have orig i nated from the burn ing of
plants to ex tract al kali. But, again, this is the most un -
likely place for ob tain ing a sup ply of plants. NEITHER
OF THESE SUGGESTIONS CAN BE AN EX-
PLANATION. -- Ibid, p.100.
Temple ruins at Serabit
Af ter re ject ing these hy poth e ses, Petrie an swers his
own ques tion: “The lo cal ity it self shows the mean ing....On this hill we see great ev i dence of
BURNT SACRIFICES; and in the cave it self were many al tars for burn ing in cense....THE
POPULAR WORSHIP OF PALESTINE IS HERE BEFORE US” (ibid, p.100, 101).

The im mense heap of ashes found by Petrie is none other than the re mains of BURNT
OFFERINGS Mo ses and the Is ra el ites of fered up to YEHOVAH God on the last day of the Feast of
Un leav ened Bread -- af ter they HASTILY left the land of Egypt!

It has been sug gested that these ashes are the ac cu mu lated re mains of cen tu ries of sac ri fices
of fered up by the Midianite min ers of Serabit. How ever, if this was the case, a heap of this size
could never have been formed be cause the el e ments would have con tin u ally eroded the ashes. Wind
and rain would have dis si pated the ashes as they were de pos ited. More over, there were never
enough min ers sta tioned at Serabit to even REMOTELY lay down a heap of this mag ni tude! ALL

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