The Fundamentals - 1910: Vol.4

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The Fundamentals the Mount of the Law, the retirement of Moses during his sojourn on the mount may have been behind the peak, in the recesses of Jebel Musa, which thus might properly bear his name.” II. SHILOH ITS RUINS AS RECENTLY INVESTIGATED Colonel Sir Charles Wilson thus describes the present ruins of Shiloh, in “Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement” for 1873, pp 37,38: “The ruins of Seilün (Shiloh) cover the surface of a ‘tell,’ or mound, on a spur which lies between two valleys, that unite about a quarter of a mile above Khan Lubban, and thence run to the sea. The existing remains are those of a fellahin village, with few earlier foundations, possibly of the date of the Crusades. The walls are built with old materials, but none of the fragments of columns men­ tioned by some travelers can now be seen. On the summit are a few heavy foundations, perhaps those of a keep, and on the southern side is a building with a heavy sloping buttress. The rock is exposed over nearly the whole surface, so that little can be expected from excavation. Northwards, the ‘tell’ slopes down to a broad shoulder across which a sort of level court, 77 feet wide and 412 feet long, has been cut out. The rock is in places scarped to a height of five feet, and along the sides are several excavations and a few small cisterns! The level portion of the rock is covered by a few inches of soil. I t is not improbable that the place was thus prepared to receive the Tabernacle, which, according to Rabbinical traditions, was a structure of low stone walls, with the tent stretched over the top. At any rate, there is no other level space on the ‘tell’ sufficiently large to receive a tent of the dimensions of the Tabernacle. “The spring of Seilün is in a small valley which joins the main one a short distance northeast of the ruins. The supply, which ic small, after running a few yards through a subterranean channel, was formerly led into a rock-hewn reservoir, but now runs to waste.” To the above items Major Claude R. Conder, R.E., in his “Tent Life in Palestine,” Vol I, pp. 81, 82, adds as follows: “There is no site in the country fixed with greater certainty than that of Shiloh. The modern name Seilün preserves the most archaic form, which is found in the Bible in the ethnic Shilonite (1 Kings 11:29). The position of the ruins agrees exactly with the very defi­ nite description given in the Old Testament of the position of Shiloh,

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