In 1995, while helping author Howard Blum research for his latest book, The Gold of Exodus, I wrote a letter to the Saudi Arabian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums.  I had learned that they had fenced off archaeological sites in the Jabal al Lawz area.  I asked them whether any documents were available concerning the research and digging at the sites.  I asked what opinion Saudi Arabian archaeologists have concerning the area.  I also asked what archaeological discoveries had been made at the sites.  Finally, I asked where the Saudi Arabian Directorate General of Antiquities had placed artifacts recovered from the sites.  Dr. Abdullah Saeed Abu-Ras, the Assistant Deputy Minister for Antiquities in Saudi Arabia, sent the following letter:

Author Howard Blum told me that explorer Larry Williams saw a fenced archaeological site at Jabal al Lawz before Larry Williams wrote his book.  Yet the Saudi Arabian Assistant Deputy Minister for Antiquities seemed to imply that his ministry conducted a survey at Jabal al Lawz as a result of Larry Williams' book.  I sent a Federal Express letter to Saudi Arabia asking the questions again, but received no response.  It would be interesting to see the official documents on these archaeological sites.

It is possible that the Saudi Arabians are hesitant to release information about the sites because they do not want to attract attention to the Jabal al Lawz area, since they have placed a new ground-to-air radar in the Jabal al Lawz mountains.  The radar monitors the airspace northwest of Saudi Arabia.  The radar is part of Operation Peace Shield, a national air defense shield installed for Saudi Arabia by Boeing and Hughes Aircraft.

On an interesting side-note, a Hughes Aircraft representative who works with Operation Peace Shield told me an interesting event that happened when the Jabal al Lawz radar site was under construction.  A contract employee became angry with his co-workers.  He wandered away from the construction site.  A search party was launched to find the missing employee.  The next day, the search party found him inside of a cave, one mountain away from the mountain on which the Peace Shield radar site had been installed.  If Mount Sinai is in the Jabal al Lawz mountains, this cave may have been the cave of Elijah, mentioned in the Bible passage below.

So [Elijah] arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.  And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"  1 Kings 19:8-9 (NKJ) [mine]

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