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Photo courtesy Bob Cornuke/Yates and Yates

The highest peak around. Jebel al-Lawz (shown here) is the tallest mountain in the vicinity of ancient Madian (modern Al-Bad’). The double-crested mountain may have been identified as Mt. Sinai by the translators of the Septuagint and other postbiblical writers. Today, some amateur explorers have seen in its oddly blackened top (see image of the blackened top of Jebel al-Lawz) an indication that it is the site where God, amid fire and smoke, revealed the Law to Moses (see the sidebar to this article). Author Kerkeslager, however, cautions that the early traditions might not be completely reliable, and that it is impossible to know just which mountain the postbiblical writers had in mind when they spoke of Mt. Sinai. Only archaeological excavation can reveal if Jebel al-Lawz contains evidence of activity from the 13th and 12th centuries B.C.E.