Seeking the Gold of Exodus
The adventure began when Williams received a letter from an on-again-off-again acquaintance, Dave Fasold, who had at one time tried to interest him in backing a documentary project about Noah's Ark. Needless to say, when Fasold's letter related his latest adventure, finding signs of buried gold at a mountain known as Jabal al Lawz in Saudi Arabia, Williams was skeptical.
"By the time Williams had come to the end of Dave Fasold's letter, he was thinking that now he had heard everything. No doubt about it, he told himself, Davey must have headed up to the surface a bit too quickly after his last dive. . . . Whatever the reason, whatever the motivation, he found himself taking an atlas down from the bookshelf catty-corner to his desk. He hunted for a map of the Middle East, and when he found it he looked down the length of the Sinai Peninsula until his eyes settled on a black dot the size of a pinhead. Above the dot were the words 'Mt. Sinai.' And directly below it, to his total amazement, he saw a tiny, but nevertheless unmistakable question mark. It was true, he suddenly realized. No one knew where Mount Sinai was located." (The Gold of Exodus, Blum, pgs. 77 & 78)
The more Williams considered Fasold's facts, the more intrigued he became. It appealed to his insatiable curiosity, and, more importantly, to his need for adventure. Williams had been involved in many projects in the past which could be deemed ethically unsound by most archaeologists. His motives for embarking on a search for the true Mt. Sinai were equally unsound. He was after the gold, the gold of Exodus.
"The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. "For otherwise,' they said, 'we will all die!' So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians." Exodus 12:33-36
"What if it was true? What if Fasold was right? What if there really was an ancient treasure buried at the foot of a mountain in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert? It would be the find
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