All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S06E20.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- Tonight,

[explosion]

they are among the Bible's
most legendary sites,

even though so much about
them is shrouded in mystery.

- Sodom and Gomorrah, the
Tower of Babel, Mount Sinai,

did these places
exist at one time?

- The book of Genesis
is full of clues

if you know where to look.

- Finding these
iconic lost locations

could reveal much about
humanity's ancient past.

- Many of these stories
are rooted in history.

And they are telling us stories

about the complex
nature of who we are.

- Future archaeological
breakthroughs

may bring us that much closer

to understanding
the Old Testament

and unlocking its secrets.

- Few sites in the Bible
are holier than Mount Sinai.

The problem is no one
actually knows where it's.

- Maybe a natural catastrophe
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

And if so, there should
be signs of what happened.

[volcano rumbling]

- These could be the actual
ruins of the Tower of Babel.

- Now we explore
the top theories

surrounding these
lost biblical places.

Did they actually exist?

And if so, where could they be?

[dramatic music]

[rhythmic music]

For thousands of years,
the Bible's Old Testament

has been the bedrock of
Judeo-Christian beliefs.

But so much about this important
document remains unknown,

including who wrote it and when.

- According to Jewish tradition,

the first five
books of the Bible

were given directly
to Moses by God

after he led the
Israelites out of Egypt.

And until the 19th
century, scholars believed

that Moses did write
all of those books.

- Scholars today believe that
at least parts of these books

were based on stories

passed down from
generation to generation

through oral tradition

and that they
therefore predate Moses

by hundreds, if not
thousands of years.

- While we're not sure of
the origins of these stories,

literally for billions of
people around the world,

these stories talk about
actual people, actual places,

actual events that are
still important to us today.

- [Laurence] What's clear

is that some Old Testament
locations are very real.

- We don't have bones that
we can trace back to people

that are featured in
the Old Testament,

but some of the places that
are mentioned still exist

and you can still
visit them today.

- One place that's very well
known is the Dome of the Rock.

The Dome of the Rock was
built in 691 CE in Jerusalem,

but it is built on the location

where Abraham almost
sacrificed his son Isaac.

And then, 20 miles to the south,

we also have the Cave
of the Patriarchs.

There's a tomb there.

And the legend is that
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

are buried here.

- [Laurence] But the
Bible also mentions

many important places we
can't definitively locate.

- Where's the Garden of Eden?

Where are Sodom and Gomorrah?

Is the Bible making
these places up

or did these places
exist at one time

and they're just mysteries

and we haven't found them yet?

- The Old Testament's
full of stories

that have almost a kind of
mythical quality to them.

And once you can go
back and visit it,

it makes those stories real.

It turns them from
myth into history.

- The Bible is about
more than science,

and so we can understand
that faith and science,

faith and reason,
don't have to conflict.

They are telling us
two different stories

about the complex
nature of who we are.

- [Laurence] One of
the most elusive sites

from the Old Testament
is the Tower of Babel.

- In the Book of Genesis,

in the early times after Noah's
flood, humankind is united.

They all speak
the same language.

And as these people begin
to migrate to the east,

they reach a land called Shinar.

- [Laurence] Shinar is
the ancient Hebrew name

for Mesopotamia, the
Middle Eastern region

often referred to as the
Cradle of Civilization.

- Within the Biblical tradition,

these were people who
wanted recognition.

And so, in the story, the
idea is that this tower

that they build to make
a name for themselves

literally reaches up to the
heavens, into the clouds.

- The humans want
to be like God.

And so the story of the Tower
of Babel is about pride,

or at least the arrogance of
trying to be like the gods.

- So God looks down and decides

that this is something
that needs to be stopped.

He decides to mix all of the
languages of all of the workers

so that they're no longer
able to understand each other

and work together.

- According to the story, in
the aftermath of God's wrath,

the entire project falls apart,
the people are scattered,

the city is abandoned, the
tower falls into ruins.

- [Laurence] The location
of the partially built tower

remains a mystery,

but is it possible the
Bible actually hints

about where it could be?

- The clue to the location
of the Tower of Babel

may, in fact, be in
the name itself.

We think of Babel as
babbling, incoherent.

What if instead Babel
meant a location?

- Semitic scholars
know that Babel

actually comes from the
word gate, bab, and el, God,

the gate of God,
[water splashing]

which refers to a specific
city in Mesopotamia

in an area known as Iraq today.

[dramatic music]

[pulsating music]

- Babylon as a city
has a long history.

It was probably founded
between 1770 and 1670 BCE.

And it had about 200,000
people living in it,

making it the largest
city of the ancient world.

The ruins of Babylon
today can be found

about 55 miles south of Baghdad,

on the banks of the
Euphrates River.

- [Laurence] In 1899, German
archaeologist Robert Koldewey

begins excavating there.

- Koldewey and this team
of some 200 researchers

descends on this region, the
former location of Babylon.

And they spend years, day
after day, excavating the site.

They're finding more and
more of the city walls.

And then they find something
really fascinating.

- So in 1913, he
and his team find

a giant base of a ziggurat.

A ziggurat is a kind of
tiered pyramid-like structure

often used to worship
the Mesopotamian gods.

Koldewey's team discovers

that not only is the
foundation massive,

but it also appeared
to match up perfectly

with biblical texts.

- It says in the Book
of Genesis specifically

that the people would
take bricks and bake them.

This is what the tower
was constructed out of.

Well, Koldewey discovers
when he's out there

excavating the base
of the ziggurat

that it's also made
of baked brick.

[mysterious music]

- The ziggurat that is found

is 300 feet long
by 300 feet wide.

In modern terms, that's
basically the length

of two football fields.

And you can imagine
how tall a building

that would allow for,

because the wider the base is,

the taller the tower.

- [Laurence] Could this be the
base of the Tower of Babel?

- For the time, a building
that huge, that monumental,

would've been the
tallest thing around.

It's easy to imagine
that people would think

that it reached all
the way to the heavens.

- [Laurence] But before the team

can finish excavating the
ziggurat, they hit a roadblock.

- The archaeological team

is not able to
investigate this further

because the base of this
tower actually sits below

the modern water table.

So, if they were to
dig any lower,

they would flood the site.

[water splashing]

- It's possible that
Koldewey and his team

were on the verge of
a major breakthrough,

but suddenly they were
stopped in their tracks.

- [Laurence] The dig may be
over, but the question remains.

Is this really the
Tower of Babel?

Some believe an
ancient stone relic

known as the Esagila
Tablet may hold the answer.

- This tablet was originally

found in the 1800s.

It's located in the
Louvre Museum today.

But it dates back to
the 6th century BCE.

- On this tablet,
it mentions a temple

which sits next to a
ziggurat that had a base

of about 300 feet wide,

a ziggurat that reaches
about 300 feet tall,

which would make it the
tallest standing structure

in ancient Mesopotamia.

It sounds an awful
lot like the structure

that was dug up back in 1913.

- [Laurence] Then in the 1990s,

another stone tablet discovered
in a private collection

reveals an intriguing
link between Babylon

and the Tower of Babel.

- One of the first
things they found

was that it
contained the outline

of a giant seven-story ziggurat.

Additionally, it had a depiction
of King Nebuchadnezzar II,

with the implication
being that he was the one

who ordered the construction
of this giant ziggurat.

There was even an inscription
that they translated

that said that Nebuchadnezzar
had brought in laborers

speaking different languages

from, quote, all
countries everywhere

into his capital city of Babylon

to build this giant edifice.

- What they discover is
that this inscription

explicitly mentions this
ziggurat, or Tower of Babylon.

What's more, you can directly
connect this inscription

with the tablet that's
back in the Louvre

that also talks about
the ziggurat of Babylon.

- Some scholars believe

that the information
on these two tablets,

the picture of the ziggurat,
its incredible size,

Nebuchadnezzar, all the
different languages,

indicate that this is
indeed the Tower of Babel.

This would mean that
Babylon could be the site

where God changes the
course of humanity forever.

- [Laurence] It's a
compelling theory,

but there are some
timeline issues.

- We know that the
tower in Babylon

is built in the
sixth century BCE.

However, in the Book of Genesis,

it says that the Tower of Babel

was built maybe a hundred
years after the flood,

which takes place in 2350 BCE.

So you've got like
1,600 years there

where this tower should been
built much, much earlier

than the evidence that
we have archaeologically.

- If this tower is built
in the sixth century BCE,

that's already well past
when you have civilizations

in Greece, China, Europe, Egypt.

And so this can't be
the scattering of people

who then establish
civilizations elsewhere

because these civilizations
are already going.

- [Laurence] Nebuchadnezzar's
building of his tower

could be the inspiration

for the story of
the Tower of Babel,

just not at the
same time period.

So maybe we ought to be
looking at additional places

as the potential site
of the Tower of Babel.

- [Laurence] One of the
most legendary lost places

of the Old Testament,
the Tower of Babel,

has long been linked to the
ancient city of Babylon.

- Most experts would
agree that a ziggurat,

or a rising tower, was
built by Nebuchadnezzar II

in the sixth century BCE,

and that that building
inspired the story

of the Tower of Babel.

- [Laurence] But not
everyone's convinced.

- British Egyptologist
David Rohl proposed in 1998

that the actual city of
Babylon wasn't ancient enough

for that temple to be
the temple mentioned

in the Book of Genesis
as the Tower of Babel.

- For Rohl, the chronology
issue is a huge deal,

so he begins to
think to himself,

all right, who's more
ancient than Babylon?

- In southern Mesopotamia,
around 2000 BCE,

approximately when the Tower
of Babel is supposedly built,

there is an ancient
civilization that exists

before the Babylonians, and

they're known as the Sumerians.

[rhythmic music]

- Sumeria is credited often
with the invention of writing.

And now you have a story
about the building of a tower

that has incorporated with it

a tale about
diversity of peoples

exploding onto the scene.

- According to this
theory, the Tower of Babel

was built by Noah's
great grandson,

a Sumerian king named Nimrod.

- Genesis says that Nimrod

built this extremely
tall tower in Mesopotamia

[rain falling]
[waves crashing]

to provide an escape in
case God floods the world.

So Nimrod was really
trying to work to obstruct

the will of God.

This sounds very
similar to the elements

in the Tower of Babel story.

- [Laurence] Rohl digs
deeper, looking for clues.

- Rohl went out and he pulled
the Sumerian kings list,

which is a document far
older than Babylon itself.

It goes back to the ancient
Sumerian civilization.

And there on the
Sumerian kings list,

Rohl finds a king
named Enmerkar.

- [Laurence] Both
Nimrod and Enmerkar

are said to rule around
the third millennium BCE,

and both are known as
great hunters and builders.

Some historians think they
could be the very same man.

- Enmerkar might not sound
anything like Nimrod,

but when we start
breaking the names down,

we find a lot of similarities.

- In Sumerian, the word
kar, or the addition of kar,

refers to a hunter.

So there we might see
a link between Nimrod,

who was the great hunter
before the Lord, and Enmer.

- When Hebrew was written, it
was written without vowels.

And so you just have consonants.

Nimrod's name was N-M-R.

And if you listen to Enmerkar
and you take the vowels out,

you end up with N-M-R kar.

And what's left are
three consonants

that are essentially equivalent
between the two names.

- We're left with two
strikingly similar names.

So taking the significance
of language at hand,

Rohl goes and looks
at the records

of the ancient Sumerian cities.

- [Laurence] If the two
kings are the same man,

is it possible that
the Tower of Babel

was built not in Babylon
but at an even older site?

- The ancient Sumerians
considered Eridu

to be the first
city in the world.

It was founded around 5,400 BCE,

which would make it
thousands of years older

than ancient Babylon.

The Sumerian king
list cites Eridu

as the city of the first kings.

And it's even said
that King Enmerkar

was hosted in the city.

So it is plausible that Eridu,

not Babylon,

is the city where the Tower
of Babel is actually built.

- Archaeologists have come
into the site of Eridu

and done some excavating,

and they actually found
an incomplete foundation

of a ziggurat that
would have been

an unprecedentedly
large structure.

- The ziggurat was abandoned
before it was completed.

Now had it actually
been completed,

the base is so large
that the ziggurat itself

would've been taller
than any other building

for hundreds of miles around.

- Whatever was built there
on this unfinished foundation

would have been built
right around the time

that the Old Testament
is telling us

that the Tower of
Babel was constructed.

- The theory about
Eridu does fit

a lot of the characteristics
of the Tower of Babel.

This ziggurat was enormous.

And it fits the
right time period,

as well as it was on a
major commercial center,

a trade line that would've
brought lots of caravans

and workers from all
parts of the known world.

So while the city
was quite ancient,

it was on the cutting
edge of a new form

of bringing folks of
different languages,

ethnicities, and
cultures together.

And as we know, even today,

sometimes that brings
with it some tension.

- [Laurence] According
to the Bible,

God gets angry at
the tower builders,

changes their language,
and drives them apart.

[tense music]

Eridu is eventually deserted.

- What happens
eventually to Eridu,

it reaches a critical mass

to support a very
large population.

So gradually, the
city is abandoned

as people have to move away,

like the story of
the Tower of Babel.

- By 600 BCE, like so
many ancient cities,

it was abandoned
not because of war

but because it simply ran
out of natural resources

to support it.

- There's something there that
the Bible's trying to tell us

about the ills
that can take place

when you have all of
these different peoples

coming together,
trying to be like God.

And so the Tower
of Babel's story

is a story of God
essentially punishing humans.

- And the Eridu theory
does check a lot of boxes.

However, as far as a
general scholarly consensus,

you're rarely gonna find that

regarding any Old
Testament topic.

And today, the site
of the Tower of Babel

remains an ongoing debate.

[mysterious music]

- [Laurence] The Dead Sea,

situated between
Israel and Jordan,

is the lowest point
on Earth's surface,

1,400 feet below sea level.

According to the Old Testament,

two notorious cities once
sat along its shores,

Sodom and Gomorrah.

[mysterious music continues]

- Sodom and Gomorrah, according
to the account in Genesis,

were places of
irredeemable evil,

so evil that God
himself had no choice

but to destroy them both
in fire and brimstone.

However, he let one man, one
good man named Lot, escape.

[rhythmic music]

- The story of
Sodom and Gomorrah

tells the story of
a man named Lot,

who's actually Abraham's nephew.

And Lot is standing outside
the gates of the city

and he meets two strangers

and invites them back to
his house for hospitality.

- These two reveal
themselves to Lot as angels.

Just about the same time,

there's a great
pounding at the door.

There is a mob that's
gathered around his house,

demanding that Lot

turn over these strangers
to them to be taken away.

Well, Lot refuses.

[mob jeering]

And that turns out to
be a very wise choice.

[rhythmic music]

- And so these angels
tell Lot and his family

to leave Sodom and Gomorrah

because God is going
to destroy these cities

[explosion]

because of their
unrighteous behavior.

- As they're fleeing,

God is so angry with
Sodom and Gomorrah

for the evils that
they have done

that he rains down
fire and brimstone

and completely
destroys these cities.

- Whatever happened
to the people there,

it was sudden and
it was devastating.

- [Laurence] Is it possible

that such a cataclysmic
event actually happened

and left evidence
that's traceable today?

- One clue is this reference

to the five cities of the plain,

two of which are
Sodom and Gomorrah.

- These cities of the plain

were located somewhere
near the Dead Sea,

in the lowland valleys
of the Jordan River.

- [Laurence] Genesis tells us

that as people raced
from Sodom and Gomorrah,

some fell into fiery pits.

For geologists,

this southwestern
edge of the Dead Sea

is intriguing because
of its rich deposits

of a substance called bitumen.

- Bitumen is actually
a highly flammable,

tarry, asphalt-like substance.

It was used in warfare.

It was also used to
waterproof boats.

And it was harvested
off the Dead Sea.

- We can look at where
bitumen is available

in the Dead Sea Basin

to figure out where Sodom
and Gomorrah might have been.

- So in the 1920s, surveys
that are done of the Dead Sea

actually reveal there
are bitumen pits

around the southern end.

- [Laurence] In
1973, archaeologists

begin excavating nearby ruins

and trying to fit the
puzzle pieces together.

- One of the candidates
for the city of Sodom

is the city of Bab edh-Dhra.

This is on the southern
end of the Dead Sea

on the Jordanian side.

And the city dates somewhere
between 3300 and 2000 BCE.

- The original name of
Bab edh-Dhra is unknown.

But according to
some descriptions,

it's thickly walled.

It seems to match the
early descriptions

of Sodom and Gomorrah in that
they were heavily walled.

- Underneath Bab edh-Dhra,
there are the remains of a city,

including a 22-foot-thick wall.

The encompassing area of
this wall is about 10 acres.

- The ruins there
at Bab edh-Dhra

show that the city had once

had a giant, heavily-fortified
gate that from all appearances

seemed to have been
destroyed by fire.

And the heavily-fortified gates

certainly catch our attention

because, well, that's where
the biblical story starts,

with Lot at very
similar city gates,

welcoming in these travelers.

- The excavations revealed

that it wasn't just
the city gates.

Much of the city had
been completely leveled

by some sort of catastrophe.

[buildings and walls rumbling]

There was a very, very thick
layer of ash everywhere.

There were bodies
that were trapped

in these collapsed buildings.

So something very, very
bad happened in this city.

[ominous music]

- There on the Dead Sea are

two geological fault lines.

So some archaeologists

have speculated

that perhaps what happened at
the story of Sodom and Gomorrah

was you had an earthquake

that ruptured these
bitumen pits underground,

forced the bitumen
up to the surface,

where, when exposed to
air, it becomes flammable,

and that something
triggered an explosion

of this newly-ruptured bitumen.

- So if you've got cities
sitting on the Dead Sea,

where earthquakes take place
at pretty regular intervals,

you can imagine how a
story of a great fire,

a great punishment from God,

could be remembered from
generation to generation

and appears to match the
story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

- [Laurence] And there
may be more to the story.

- One of the issues here
with securely identifying

Sodom and Gomorrah
with these cities

is the problem of the timeline.

It says in the Book of
Genesis that this takes place

when Abraham is about

a hundred years old,

but this destruction

would've taken place

maybe 350 years before

Abraham was even born.

- Even though we have
chronologies that don't line up,

oftentimes that can be a
result of oral traditions

and oral storytelling.

However, it's possible

that we're just looking
in the wrong place.

[mysterious music]

- The destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah

is one of the most violent
scenes in the Old Testament,

apocalyptic destruction,
mass casualties,

whole cities swallowed by flame.

Given the scale of the damage,

archaeologists and historians
have looked for wreckage

to pinpoint the
location of both cities.

Today, they are
finally getting close.

[tense music]

- One of the clues in the story
itself that helps us to know

where Sodom and Gomorrah

and the other cities
of the plain are

is that we are told
that Lot was in Bethel,

looking out over the
cities of the plain.

- Bethel is a city that's about
10 miles north of Jerusalem.

It's at about 3,000
feet elevation.

And it's a city that was
well known in the Bible.

It's mentioned 60 times
in the Old Testament.

For a long time, archaeologists
and biblical scholars

thought that Sodom and Gomorrah

must be somewhere on the
southern end of the Dead Sea.

[tense music]

So in 2001, an archaeologist
known as Dr. Steven Collins

decides that he's
going to go to Bethel.

And he is going to, like Lot,

look out and see
what he can see.

- He looked down and said,

"I can't see the south side
of the Dead Sea from Bethel,

so maybe I should go looking

on the north side
of the Dead Sea

and see whether or not
there's a candidate

for Sodom and Gomorrah there.

[tense music]

- In 2005, Steven
Collins begins digging

in the northern part
of the Dead Sea,

a site called Tall el-Hammam,

in a valley where the Jordan
River flows into the Dead Sea.

- Now, Tall el-Hammam is
an ideal place for a city.

It's on this luscious
pasturing land

on the northeastern
shore of the Dead Sea.

So Dr. Collins begins
his excavations there

and he begins to find a
structure that turns into a city

that dates to about 2000 BCE.

And this leads many scholars,
including Dr. Collins,

to suggest that
maybe Tall el-Hammam

is the biblical cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah.

- He discovers that there's
a gate and 50-foot towers.

This corresponds with
the biblical account

of Lot meeting the
angels at Sodom

at the gateway to the city.

- Digging deeper into the
remains of this ancient city,

Collins finds that there are
a lot of collapsed buildings,

a lot of skeletal remains.

Things start to get really dark.

[tense music]

- [Laurence] It looks like

almost everyone in
this ancient city

may have been burned alive.

- The dig team uncovers
pottery fragments,

the surface of which
are basically glass,

which meant that
these were subjected

to heat of immense proportions,

in excess of 2,000
degrees Fahrenheit.

And the kilns of that period

could not produce
heat like that.

It really was just
like volcanic glass.

- And to achieve that effect,

you have to basically
expose this material

to these incredibly

intense bursts of heat.

- One of the things that
instantly comes to mind

when you think of
that kind of heat

would be a volcano.

The problem is there are
absolutely no volcanoes

in this particular area.

- Some theorize that
whatever happened here

actually came from
out of this world,

in the form of a meteor.

[meteor rumbling]
[tense music]

Granted there's no meteor
crater in the area,

but a meteor can break up
to the point of exploding.

[explosion booming]

- The air burst theory means

that the meteor doesn't
actually have to hit the ground,

it can break up in the air.

And the heat generated
by this breakup

is enough to incinerate
everything beneath it.

Maybe this is what
the ancient people saw

and understood to be

the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah

at the hands of God
with fire and brimstone.

So according to the
biblical chronology,

Sodom and Gomorrah would
have to be destroyed

between 2100 and 1700 BCE.

And Tall el-Hammam's destruction

is dated at around 1600 BCE.

So not an exact
match, but closer.

[mysterious music]

- Finding these places,
like the Tower of Babel,

Sodom and Gomorrah,
serves two purposes.

One, it can help to
confirm people's faith.

But secondly, it helps us
to sort of link humanity

to its ancient history.

- And it's not just about
buildings and cities

that are located in
the biblical past.

There are entire land forms
waiting to be found as well.

- [Laurence] There's no place

more sacred in the Old
Testament than Mount Sinai,

where God first spoke to Moses

through the burning bush

and later gave him
the 10 Commandments.

But this Holy Mountain
can't be found on any map.

- People want to find
historical locations,

specifically biblical locations,

because it helps them
with their faith.

If I can walk in the
place that Moses walked,

it gives me the feeling
that these people were real

and that what they did was real.

The dispute over the
location of Mount Sinai

goes back to when
Christian pilgrims

built a monastery at
the foot of Mount Serbal

in the Sinai Desert.

And while they believed

that this was the
location of Mount Sinai,

others have questioned
this location

because it doesn't exactly match

with what it says in
the Book of Exodus.

There are actually
thousands of mountains

on the Sinai Peninsula.

So which one is actually Mount
Sinai is anybody's guess.

- Part of the confusion
about where Mount Sinai is

is that we don't know exactly
where the Israelites went

after they fled Egypt.

They wandered for 40 years,

and we don't know exactly what
their route would've been.

- The Book of Exodus tells us
that Moses and the Israelites

wandered for three months

from Egypt to get to
this particular site.

The second clue is that
it is a 14-day journey

from the city known as
Elim to Mount Sinai.

And it also says it's
an 11-day journey

to reach an oasis
known as Kadesh Barnea.

- Based on these distances

indicated in the Bible
in the Book of Exodus,

some researchers say that
the location of Mount Sinai

should be somewhere

on the eastern edge of
the Sinai Peninsula,

which borders the Gulf of Aqaba.

And it turns out there is
a place just like that.

[suspenseful music]

- The Bible also gives us clues

in the story of
the burning bush.

The first clue being that Moses

was there with
his father-in-law.

And within a few dozen miles

of his father-in-law's
Midianite camp

would've been the
place where Moses

would've encountered God in
the form of the burning bush.

So if we can find
the Midianite camp,

we can find the actual
site of Mount Sinai.

- According to the
Book of Exodus,

Moses was tending to his goats
when he saw the burning bush.

And because goats
don't normally graze

more than 30 miles from home,

it's believed that Mount Sinai

must not have
been very far away.

- In the 1960s, an
Israeli archaeologist

actually find some
Midianite relics

in this valley north
of the Gulf of Aqaba.

So if that's where
the goats are from

and we go out 30 miles
from there in a radius,

we might be able to actually
locate Mount Sinai in Egypt.

[mysterious music]

- One possible candidate

is a mountain called
Hashem el-Tarif.

That mountain is
2,890 feet high,

which is about as high
as described in Exodus.

It also has a large
plateau at its base,

because according to Exodus,

the Israelites were
gathered on a plateau

while Moses went to
the top of Mount Sinai

to receive the 10
Commandments from God.

- There's also a scene
in the Book of Exodus

where the Israelites
are very thirsty

and Moses comes down and he
strikes at rocks with his staff

and fresh water springs
out of the ground.

The site now doesn't
have any spring,

but excavators have found traces

of calcium deposits
there in the area,

which indicates that
at some point there,

there was a spring.

It's also been discovered

that there are are a
number of sacred structures

and artifacts in
this particular area

that shows that there were
probably religious rites

or rituals that took
place on this site.

So it seems to have
been regarded as sacred.

- [Laurence] Finding Mount
Sinai has long been a quest

by archaeologists and
biblical scholars

because of its important
role in the Old Testament.

Some experts think it may
indeed have been a place

of awesome power.

- [Laurence] Mount
Sinai is considered

one of
the holiest places

in the Old Testament.

And the Bible describes it in
vivid and awe-inspiring terms.

- In the Book of Exodus,

Mount Sinai is described
as being wrapped in smoke

because God has
descended fire upon it.

It also says that
Mount Sinai shakes

and there are the sounds
of trumpets at its summit.

- We also get a third
description of Mount Sinai,

and it says in
the Book of Judges

that Mount Sinai melted
in the presence of God.

- [Laurence] Based
on that description,

there may be more to this
famous peak then meets the eye.

- It's written that Mount
Sinai blazed with fire

that reached up
into the heavens.

This is far from the way the
Bible describes most mountains.

- Smoke, heat, shaking, fire,

these descriptors
all make Mount Sinai

appear to be more of a volcano.

The problem is there
are no volcanoes

located on the Sinai Peninsula.

However, there is one
that's not too far away

from that location.

[tense music]

[mysterious music]

- In order to
believe this theory,

you have to accept
that the Israelites

actually moved
much farther east,

out of the Sinai Peninsula,

and into what is
today Saudi Arabia.

- For a long time,

archaeologists and
biblical scholars

thought that Moses
and the Israelites

crossed at the northern
part of the Red Sea

up across the Gulf of Suez.

However, this theory suggests
that they traveled eastward

and they crossed over
the Gulf of Aqaba,

through a place called Etham.

- While the traditional
biblical account

says that the children of Israel
passed through Etham twice,

some have speculated

that maybe there were
two cities named Etham,

one on the east side
of the Gulf of Aqaba

and one on the west side.

- If Moses and his followers
crossed the Gulf of Aqaba,

this takes them, in fact,
into the Arabian Peninsula.

- So if Mount Sinai
actually was a volcano,

then we would expect
to try to find it

in the Arabian Peninsula.

And, in fact, there
are dormant volcanoes

in the Arabian Peninsula.

- [Laurence] Could
volcanic activity

also explain the
account in Exodus,

of how God guided the
Israelites through the desert?

- The Bible says
that the Hebrews

were led by a pillar
of cloud by day

and a pillar of fire by night.

Now, the most logical
explanation for this

is a volcano

that would be
emitting both a fire

that you could
see in the evening

and smoke that you could
see during the day.

That's what's leading
you to Mount Sinai.

- According to
the Old Testament,

Mount Sinai is 11 days away

from an oasis known
as Kadesh Barnea,

which is where Moses and
the Israelites camped

on their journey from
Egypt to the promised land.

- An 11-day journey would
be roughly 200 miles.

And some scholars have drawn

a 200-mile circumference
around Kadesh Barnea,

looking for any
potential volcanoes

that could fall
within that radius.

And sure enough, there
are a few candidates.

- According to the findings,
there were three volcanoes

that would've been active
during Moses's time.

But only one, Hala-'l Badr,
would've been powerful enough

to be seen from where
the Hebrews were.

[eruption booming]

- The eruption certainly
would've been visible.

The smoke would've been
at least three miles

above the volcano.

The imagery of a volcano with
the fire, with the smoke,

really does fit the accounts
in the Hebrew Bible.

- [Laurence] And the
resemblance doesn't end there.

- At the base of the volcano,

there is also a
very flat plateau

and there's a source of a
freshwater spring there.

So these details seem
to line up pretty nicely

with what we find in
the Book of Exodus.

Identifying the actual
location of Mount Sinai,

or Sodom and Gomorrah, any
of these ancient lost cities,

isn't going to make
believers out of unbelievers,

but it is going to at
least make more real

some of these stories that
we find in the Old Testament.

- There is evidence

that there probably
was a Tower of Babel,

that there were ancient cities

that we've called Sodom and
Gomorrah that probably existed.

Now, how these stories
continue to be told

or shaped is one thing.

But what we do know
is that many of them,

if not most of them,
are rooted in history.

- With the Old
Testament, so much of it

is so familiar and certain
parts of it have been uncovered.

But, even still, some
of these key places,

we still don't know
where they are,

and so those mysteries
still persist to this day.

[flames crackling]

- As biblical experts

and archaeologists
continue their quest

to find the lost places
of the Old Testament,

they continue to
unearth new information

about the ancient world.

What other secrets can be found

hidden beneath the desert sands

and what will they reveal

about the Old Testament's
most legendary figures?

Only time will tell.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."

[mysterious music]