QuailMapSouthernSinaiExodusWadiAbuGada

Quail Maps of the Southern Sinai and the Exodus's Qauil miracle in the Wilderness of Sin

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.

15 October 2005

Please click here for my article on the "Poisonous Quail of the Exodus" for which the below maps were created.

The below map shows the locations of Wadi al Gharandal (famed for its palmtrees and springs), and equated by some scholars as possibly being Elim (which means trees in Hebrew) of the Exodus traditions. I have proposed that the wilderness of Sin which follows Elim may be the high plain of Hosan Abu Zenna which lies just south of Gharandal. (Map titled Suez. Sheet NH-36-10. Scale: 1:250,000. Washington DC. 1970.

Below, Quail apparently return during the annual Spring migration from the Lakes District of Lower Africa to southern Europe, to rest briefly in Wadi Abu G'ada, a headwater of Wadi Gharandal. Their flight path to G'ada from Africa probably takes them south of Gharandal and over the plain on the Wadi's south side called Hosan Abu Zenna, could this be the "wilderness of Sin that Yahweh rained quail from heaven upon his people ? THat is to say did a strong east wind stop the exhausted birds from getting to Wadi Abu G'ada, forcing them to alight in the plains of Hosan Abu Zenna ?(Map titled Qal'et El-Nakhl, Egypt. Sheet NH 36-11. Washington DC. 1972. Scale: 1:250,000). Every book and article I have ever read on the Quail of the Sinai affirms they alight ONLY in the northern Sinai on the Mediterranean seashore after an Autumn flight from southern Europe enroute for their feeding grounds in the Laes District of Lower Africa. As far as I know I am the ONLY scholar to identify quail alighting in the Southern Sinai in the Spring, verifying the Exodus tradition.