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through the land of Havilah, where there is gold." Ac- drought late in the third millennium before Christ
cording to an article for Biblical Archaeology Review which could support Genesis accounts of severe fam-
by archaeologist James Sauer, the Hijaz Mountains ine during the time of Joseph.
near the river site "do produce gold, and the river
passes a city called Hadiyah." Sauer added that the dis- Two archaeologists writing in the journal Nature say
covery will make it harder for skeptics "to ignore the they've discovered evidence that Joshua did indeed
possility that the Bible texts accurately preserve many fight the battle of Jericho during the early 16th century
earlier traditions." B.C. Radiocarbon dating of several cereal grains in de-
bris left by the destruction of Jericho support several
Sauer, former curator of the Harvard Semitic Mu- aspects of the Exodus account, Hendrick J. Bruins and
seum's archaeological collections, also notes that new Johannes van der Plicht write in a brief letter to
evidence of climate changes in the ancient Near East Nature.
suggest that the region may once have known alternat-
ing periods of wet and dry, fitting with early Bible Some geologists have suggested that some aspects of
accounts. the Exodus -- such as the parting of the Res Sea and
the plague of darkness -- could be explained by the
Sauer said evidence of floods in Mesopotamia dating eruption of the Thera volcano on the Mediterranean is-
back to 3,500 B.C. support the Bible's flood account, land of Santorini in approximately 1628 B.C., perhaps
and suggest a historical source for the story in Gene- 45 years before the destruction of Jericho. That time
sis. Sauer's research in Yemen found areas of dark soil difference could coincide with the 40 years of wander-
nearly 10 feet thick and filled with decayed organic ings in the desert mentioned in Exodus, note Bruins
matter -- soil produced by wet conditions. He also (professor at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
found that in Saudi Arabia before 3,500 B.C. ancient in Israel) and Van der Plicht (from the University of
lakes existed in what is today the world's largest de- Groningen in the Netherlands).
sert. In addition, he found evidence of a period of
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