Did Amateur Archaeologists Find the Real Mt. Sinai?

In 1988 Wall Street millionaire Larry Williams and ex-cop Bob Cornuke snuck into Saudi Arabia on a mission to explore what they believed was the real Mt. Sinai—Jebel al-Lawz. Using the Book of Exodus as their guide, they searched the 8,500-foot-high peak for evidence that this was the site where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

Williams (at left in the photo below) and Cornuke (at right) were following in the footsteps of the self-proclaimed archaeologists Ron Wyatt and David Fasold, who visited the mountain in 1986 hoping to find the “gold of Exodus”—the Egyptian jewelry that they believed the Israelites had brought with them from Egypt (Exodus 12:35–36). Wyatt and Fasold did not get far: After only one morning on the mountain, they were arrested for illegal excavation, threatened with capital punishment and deported.

Knowing of Larry Williams’s interest in biblical finds and of his wealth, Fasold informed the millionaire of their curtailed excavations and told him that his metal detector had indicated that the plains around Jebel al-Lawz were rich with buried gold. Enticed, Williams in turn contacted Cornuke, a former policeman with a reputation for bravery. Together, they decided to enter Saudi Arabia illegally and explore Mt. Sinai. The story of their clandestine trip to Jebel al-Lawz has been recounted in videos and books—including the New York Times best-seller The Gold of Exodus, by Howard Blum.^a