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The
Discovery of the Valley of Lemuel: No, It Wasn't a Mirage (Part
One)
by
Bruce A. Santucci
Southern
end of the Empty Quarter, where Lehi's party suffered the most.
Have you ever
wondered what it would be like to discover a Book of Mormon archaeological
site like the Valley of Lemuel? It might change your life forever.
Knowing where Lehi actually camped might set you off on a journey
you wouldn't end until you had reached Bountiful.
Such was the
force that compelled George Potter, his colleagues and I each time
we turned off the paved roads of modern civilization and headed
our 4 X 4s, loaded with extra cans of gasoline and drinking water
into the Arabian outback. George was hot on the ancient trail of
Lehi and assured us we would be safe and successful in our efforts.
But what if
his theories were wrong and someone did get hurt? Moses described
this land as "a great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery
serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water."
Consider the following story from the Arab News just last month:
YOUTH DIES OF
THIRST IN DESERT:
Baqaa -- A 25 year-old Saudi from the Assulaimy family was found
dead by security officers in the desert on Saturday after a weeklong
search.
A team from
the civil defense, patrol police and the criminal investigation
units confirmed that the man had died of thirst, Okaz reported.
Assulaimy was
on an outing with his family to Atana and Akhdar valleys in the
Tabuk region.
After reaching
the area, the family went out to see the sites and asked the youth
to stay behind and look after their belongings.
"When the family
returned, they could not find him. They made a fire to help the
man find his way back during the night. But he did not return. They
later searched for him everywhere before informing the police,"
the Arabic paper said.
Six jeeps, a
helicopter and several security officers were involved in the search,
which lasted for seven days.
The youth was
planning to celebrate his wedding after winning the consent of a
Tabuk family to marry one of their daughters.
Meanwhile, a
viper attacked a group of Saudi youngsters on Friday while they
were resting close to Baqaa. One of the youths eventually managed
to kill the snake.
Various poisonous
snakes are emerging from their hideouts because of the high temperatures
and health officials have urged the public to be on their guard.
Zaid Al-Barrak,
who killed the snake said it attacked the group of boys while they
were relaxing on a hillside.
The viper is
one of the most venomous snakes in the world and its bite may kill
a person. In Saudi Arabia, it exists mostly in Hail and the Empty
Quarter.
Staff Writer
The story above demonstrates that poisonous reptiles still abound
in these deserts. There would be no medical services in the Arabian
wilderness, no rescue helicopters at our beck and call and little
law and order. We all knew many of the areas where we traveled continue
to be plagued with roaming bandits; just as in Lehi's time.
Still, these
thoughts didn't linger long. What member wouldn't take some risk
to be the first group of Latter-day Saints to stand in the place
and camp where the great prophet Nephi had stayed.
It was this
lure of discovery that drove George and his friends to pursue continued
investigations into the desert. Book of Mormon scholars have long
believed that Arabia was the wilderness Lehi crossed to reach Bountiful
and we were in the right place at the right time and with time enough
off from our regular jobs here to follow the Trail of Lehi to Bountiful.
Our search would
end when we had been satisfied that we had indeed located all the
places in Arabia described by Nephi, including the place along the
shoreline of south Arabia where Nephi constructed a large ship and
set sail to the promised land of the Americas.
We all believe
the Book of Mormon is a true history; an eyewitness account of the
crossing of Arabia. Still, as the pieces of George's research came
together; one candidate after another became important to investigate
and early results convinced us that we could actually find Lehi's
entire trail.
We are all employed
in Saudi Arabia, and several of us have 4 by 4 trucks. So there
didn't seem much to prevent us from making the attempt to find and
follow Lehi's actual trail.
It was a tall
order, but from the photographs George had taken in northwest Arabia,
we had enough evidence to realize that this was no wild goose chase
of some willful believer.
Some might contend
that we are not professional scholars. This is true. We do, however
have one thing the armchair academics do not -- ready access to
Arabia. We live in Arabia, and we have the time and desert exploration
skills needed to safely complete a difficult search for Nephi's
history.
Scholars we
aren't, but we knew enough before starting our search that objective
research techniques would need to be used. Otherwise, what chance
would we have of convincing the nay-saying non-LDS world that we
had located actual Book of Mormon place-names. We are not professional
academics, but most of us have Master's or Doctoral degrees in our
chosen fields of study and have learned to tell the difference between
objective evidence and the evidence a quack brings to the table.
George's theories
were derived from historical records of travel in Arabia, and his
actual field work in which we retraced the ancient Frankincense
trail.
Earlier attempts
to discover Lehi's trail include the written work of Dr. Hugh W.
Nibley, who to this day, has never had the opportunity to travel
and verify his theories in Arabia.
Studies by Lynn
and Hope Hilton, Warren and Michella Aston and Scot and Maurine
Proctor also contributed to our understanding of Lehi's trail.
Research
on Nephi’s Harbor brought George to Egypt.
So what could
we bring to the exploration table that the earlier authors could
not?
First we had
continuous access to Saudi Arabia; the Kingdom which encompasses
the largest portion of Lehi's trail, including such important Book
of Mormon place-names as the Valley of Lemuel, the River of Laman,
Shazer, the Most Fertile Parts, and the camp where Nephi broke his
bow.
Second, we had
the time to dissect the trail into pieces and tackle each challenge
one step at a time. For example, it took George Potter and Richard
Wellington three years to find the probable site of Shazer.
Third, we had
a rich pool of technical experts to draw from. The American community
in Arabia is blessed with talented and experienced geologists, desert
explorers, old map collectors and Arabists. Finally, because many
of us work closely with Saudis in our jobs, we have many opportunities
to discuss travel in Arabia with those who may have had ancestors
who traveled on or dealt with those using the ancient caravan trails
to transport commodities from one place to another.
After traveling
some 75,000 miles of desert roads and having spent what seemed like
endless hours in interviews and libraries, George and his co-author
and exploring partner Richard Willington are happy to report that
they have finally concluded their study on Lehi's trail.
With an air
of satisfaction on his face, George is convinced as he told me the
other day once again: "Not only do we believe we have located every
Book of Mormon place-name in Arabia, we have also found that every
assertion made by Nephi about their travels in the wilderness, 81
in all, exist now or did exist in c BC 597." (see www.nephiproject.com)
I remember the
surprise at first, as George found that his first-hand research
and travel discoveries did not support the theories of earlier Book
of Mormon writers on the subject. Dr. Nibley was the sole exception
but had only written in generalities.
Previous writers
had Lehi wandering in Arabia or forging a trail down the Red Sea
shoreline. Both these theories are baseless in terms of Nephi's
text, and furthermore would have been impossible to have accomplished
during the sixth century BC.
Our discoveries
were found along the slightly inland Frankincense trail. It quickly
became obvious that Dr. Nibley's theory was right. That is, Lehi
had taken the same trail that all trans-Arabic travelers took in
that day; the Gaza to Salalah branch of the caravan route of the
Frankincense trail. To help you put it into perspective, think of
the Frankincense route as the New Jersey Turnpike or San Diego Freeway
of its day.
How did George
Potter come to walk in the shoes of an explorer? His only previous
exploring days were preparation day expeditions when he was a LDS
missionary. His mission from 1969-71 took him to the heights of
the Andes; the land of the Incas and several other ancient civilizations.
He and his missionary
companions, like most LDS missionaries called to Central and South
America, enjoyed exploring the ancient ruins near where they served.
To George, each set of rocky remains seemed to reveal another aspect
of life in the Americans before Columbus.
After a year
at BYU and his mission, George returned to his home state of California
and put aside amateur archaeology. He graduated with high honors
from the University of California at San Diego, and two years later
received a master's degree from the University of California at
Berkeley.
Upon leaving
the university he became a Certified Public Accountant and practiced
as an auditor for one of the so-called Big 5 firms.
Later he entered
management and consulting; two professions which have taken him
to over 40 countries, including a five year stay in Zurich, Switzerland.
Nine years ago,
he took the opportunity to settle down with SCECO, the power company
of Saudi Arabia.
Dividing his
time between his family of ten children, a demanding career, Church
and community work is never easy, especially when the possibilities
that lay open to him to verify or disprove his evolving ideas on
Lehi-Nephi's trail. Somehow, he made or found the time to ponder
the Book of Mormon exploring possibilities in Arabia.
The same can
be said for those who became his primary partners in research and
exploration, Richard Wellington and Timothy Sedor. Their lives were
also transformed.
George's Bishop
at the time, Richard Wellington (UK), probably wishes George had
never moved into his ward.
Richard has
accompanied George on almost very trip into the desert, spent thousands
of hours reading on the subject, and is the co-author of their book
Discovering The Lehi-Nephi Trail. (Due for release in Fall
2002).
Their ward clerk
and permanent Primary teacher, Timothy Sedor (USA) endured a similar
fate. Tim has evolved into a gifted photographer, producing with
George a series of videos on our discoveries. (see www.nephiproject.com).
George's life
as an explorer started one hot morning in May of 1995 when Tom Culler,
Craig Thorsted and George set out from their homes on the Persian
Gulf side of Arabia to their destiny in the northwest corner of
Saudi Arabia.
George had no
idea his life was about to change. All he knew was that his two
traveling partners were determined to find the Arabian candidate
for Mount Sinai which the Paul mentions in the Book of Galatians.
Tom, a member
of the stake presidency at the time, and Craig, his group leader,
had made several previous attempts to find the candidate for the
sacred mountain that so many believe (even today) is located in
Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula (Mt. St. Katherine's).
Brother Potter
assumed that this trip, like the ones before it, would fail to locate
the mountain. With this in mind, he agreed to take Tom and Craig
in his truck on the twenty-hour drive to Midian with the proviso
that if they failed to find the mountain within two days, they would
give up their first objective, cross the border to Jordan, and visit
the famous Jordanian ruins of Petra. Thus it was agreed, and they
headed out of town on a very long trip across Arabia.
As they entered
the region of Arabia called Midian, George saw that the area had
hundreds of mountains within its reaches. He grew very doubtful
of their chances of success.
Tom and Craig
however, were optimistic. Tom had a friend, who had a friend, who
knew someone who lived in the area and knew the Bedouins near Jabel
al-Lawz, the suspect mountain they were looking for. George felt
he had been around the block a few times, and thought this would
be just another goose-chase.
Lo and behold,
on their arrival in Tabuk, the nearest city to their search area,
there was the friend's friend's colleague waiting for them. This
"City" Saudi confirmed that he knew the Bedouins in the area. George
and Tom figured that even if he could not find his friends, this
Saudi spoke enough English to function as a translator for them.
An hour's drive
northwest from Tabuk, they left the highway and headed out across
the sand and through the hills. Here and there they started picking
up the Saudi's Bedu buddies. First the Bedouins took them to a tall
sandstone cliff where water dripped from an overhang into a pool
of water. One guide proclaimed through our translator that, "Here
is where Musa (Arabic for Moses) struck the rock and water came
out". George was not impressed.
Next, they stopped
at a Bedouin camp to pick up rifles in case wolves or rabbits were
spotted. The tribesmen hunted both animals for food. At last they
headed up a steep dirt construction road toward the top Jebel al-Lawz.
Unfortunately they found that the entire mountain was a massive
construction project. It's top, which had been removed, was the
future site of a US built radar and command center. The defense
site would eventually cost some five hundred million US dollars.
We left the mountain realizing that if it had been mount Sinai,
it could no longer reveal its monuments.
George, Tom
and Craig spent the afternoon as the guest of one of the Bedouin's
fathers. He was a noble man in his sixties. He had one of those
lean muscular bodies so typical of the older generation of rugged
Bedu herdsman. Through our translator we learned that he had four
wives and twenty-five sons and daughters. After hearing of such
a brood, for once in his life, George felt that his own large family
was only a modest lot. This probably explained why this Bedu patriarch
was such a hard worker. He offered them a Bedu feast, and then personally
prepared the entire meal. He gathered a live goat and bags of flour
and salt into a desert feast called kebsa.
After dinner,
the old Bedouin provided them with an amazing demonstration of marksmanship.
With his old Chinese rifle, steadiness of body and sharp-eye, he
hit target after target. After the feast, the LDS trio said good-bye
to their new Bedouin friends, and set up their camp before darkness
fell.
From an anthropological
standpoint, it had been a wonderful outing. However, that day they
found no Mount Sinai candidate. They woke the next morning bright
and early.
George broke
down his tent, enjoyed a wilderness breakfast, and looked forward
to a delightful day in the desert, chasing an elusive Mount Sinai.
That day however, they located the target of their search, possibly
the very mountain that to this day is revered by the locals as Jebel-al-Musa.
The real jewel
of their trip came the following day. Tom had returned to the Eastern
Province, while George and Craig set out to trace the trail of Moses.
In so doing, they stumbled upon a place of great importance to the
LDS community, the Valley of Lemuel. (see FARMS/BYU Journal of Book
of Mormon Studies, November 1999) Now George was impressed. He realized
that it had all the characteristics associated with Lehi's first
camp in the wilderness, and from that moment, he knew he had found
a calling - "find the rest of Lehi's trail". (to be continued in
Part Two)
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