[Hebrew: vhemah bakkthuwbiym]
which literally signify, "and they were amongst the inscriptions."
A personal and literary examination of the locality of the Sinaitic
inscriptions convinces me that Eldad and Medad were then in that famous
region. By a reference to the chapter alluded to, it will be found that
the children of Israel were then at that awfully memorable place called
_Kibroth Hattavah_ (ver. 34.), and no one, who has but a slight
knowledge of scripture topography, will be at a loss to observe that it
is the very spot where the mysterious inscriptions are found.
Dr. Robinson, in his _Biblical Researches_, vol. i. p. 138., thus
notices the subject in question:
"The Sinaite inscriptions are found on all the routes which lead from
the West towards Sinai, above the convent El-Arbain, but are found
neither on Gebel Musa, nor on the present Horeb, nor on St. Catherine,
nor in the valley of the convent; while on Serbal they are seen on its
very summit."
Lord Lindsay, in his first letter from _Edom and the Holy Land_,
introduces the same district in the following words:
"We now entered Wady Mokatteb, a spacious valley, bounded on the east
by a most picturesque range of black mountains, but chiefly famous for
the inscriptions on the rocks that line it, and from which it derives
its name. There are thousands of them, inscriptions too, and here is
the mystery, in a character which no one has yet deciphered."
Now, let the ancient and modern maps be compared, and it will be
discovered that the same place which is called, in Num. xi. 26.,
[Hebrew: kthuwbiym], probably on account of its inscriptions, is also
called by the Arabians [Arabic: wadi el mokatteb] _Wady el Mokatteb_.
Should the identity between Wady Mokatteb and Kibroth Hattavah be
considered conclusive, then the antiquity of the Sinaitic inscriptions
is far more remote than the date fixed by certain archaeologists and
palaeographists; the records may prove to be, in truth and in deed, the
handy-work of the Israelites during their encampment there.
The readers of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" need scarcely be told that the
inscriptions were first noticed in the sixth century by Cosmas, a
Graeco-Indian merchant, who was hence surnamed Indicopleustes. But it is
necessary to impress the fact that Cosmas, though a man of intelligence
and of letters, considered that the alphabet in which the inscriptions
were made, was unknown; but having visited the Wady in company with
certain well-informed Jews, his Hebrew companions read and deciphered
several of the records, and decided that the Israelites of the Egyptian
Exodus were the performers of the inscriptions. All this Cosmas stated
in his _Christian Topography_ (a work published for the first time in
1707 by the learned Montfaucon), and concurs in the opinion that the
ancient Hebrews were the scribes. This circumstance borne in mind, will
be proof against the theory conceived by Professor Beer, brought forth
by Dr. Lepsius, adopted and fostered by Dr. Wilson, viz. that an Utopian
Nabathaean Christian tribe executed those inscriptions during their
pilgrimages to the sacred localities on Mount Sinai. Is it not strange
that Cosmas should not have heard that there was such a tribe of scribes
in the valley? Is it not unaccountable that the knowledge of the
alphabet should so soon have been forgotten? Cosmas flourished
comparatively but a short time after the supposed Nabathaeans.
But the advocates of the Nabathaean theory argue that the Sinaitic
inscriptions must be of a comparatively modern date, since there are
found amongst them some Greek and Latin ones; and, moreover, the cross
does sometimes occur in various shapes. I venture to submit that the
inscriptions bear self-evidence that they have been executed at various
dates. It is true that by far the greatest number of them display
indubitable marks of remote antiquity; but there are some which must be
pronounced juvenile when compared with the _great majority_. The latter
bear marks of an execution resembling the inscriptions on the ancient
Egyptian obelisks, whilst the former are rude and superficially cut, and
already almost effaced. I take, therefore, the Greek and Latin, and
indeed some of the yet unknown inscriptions, to have been cut at a
comparatively modern date. Who knows whether Cosmas and his companions
did not try their hands at a few?
Why should it be thought improbable that the different monks on Mount
Sinai, who occupied the convent there at various ages, should have done
their quota to puzzle the modern palaeographist and traveller? Is it
absolutely impossible that the prefect of the Franciscan missionaries of
Egypt, who visited the Wady in 1722, and his companions, who were well
instructed in the Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin,
Armenian, Turkish, English, Illyrian, German, and Bohemian languages,
should have chiselled a few in the characters they were most expert? In
the same manner might the occurrence of the cross be accounted for, if
it were necessary, without precipitating oneself to the conclusion that
"the occurrence, in connection with the inscriptions of the cross in
various forms, indicates that their _origin_ should be attributed to the
early Christians." But is it possible that such antiquaries as Drs.
Beer, Lepsius, and Wilson, should be ignorant, or affect to be ignorant,
that the cross was an ancient hieroglyphic, of a date long before the
Christian era, well known by the name of _Crux Ansata_, and of the
_Divina Taw_, and signified among the Egyptians "Life to come"? That the
form of the cross was used among the Hebrews is conclusive from the fact
that it was the ancient Hebrew mint letter for the [Hebrew: tav]. What,
then, is the value of the arguments in behalf of the Nabathaean theory?
All the specimens that have been given hitherto of the inscriptions, are
no more in comparison with the vast numbers which literally cover the
highest mountains, than a drop out of a bucket, including even those
given in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of 1766, in the _Transactions
of the Royal Society of Literature_ of 1832, and by the Rev. Charles
Forster of this year[1], and even adding the 1200 taken by M. Lottin de
Laval. (See "NOTES AND QUERIES", Vol. iv., p. 332.)
[Footnote 1: _The One Primeval Language, &c._, by the Rev. Charles
Forster. The above is a compendium of two letters which the writer
addressed on the subject to his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin,
and the late Bishop of Norwich,--to the former from Paris, to the
latter from Alexandria. See _A Pilgrimage to the Land of my
Fathers_, vol. i. pp. 6-15. Mr. Forster's work did not appear
until about a year after the publication of part of the writer's
travels.]