| | Mount Carmel is a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Its name is derived from the Hebrew "Karem El" which means 'vineyards of God'. In ancient times it was covered by vineyards and was at all times famous for its fertility.A Syrian Philosopher of the 4th century A.D., called Iamblichus, wrote that Mount Carmel was "the most holy of all mountains and forbidden of access to many."Geography |
| <Mount Carmel is 16 miles long by 4-5 miles wide and 1,800 feet high. The city of Haifa is partially on Mount Carmel, and so are a few smaller towns such as Nesher, Tirat Hakarmel, Yokneam and Zikhron Ya'aqov. The city of Acre (also known as Akko) is more or less across the bay on the north side.Mount Carmel is widely recognized as a Sacred mountain directly related, in its origins, to Judaism and Christianity, the ancient Essene Brotherhood, and a place which historically influenced other place names, religious movements - eg. Bahá’í Faith - and literature around the world till today, meaning that it works in practice as a World heritage. |
HistoryMount Carmel is mentioned in the Bible. On Mount Carmel transpired the miracles attending the competition between Baal and the Israelite God YHVH, after which the priests of Baal were put to death by the order of the prophet Elijah18 "I have not made trouble for Israel," Elijah replied. "But you and your father's family have. You have abandoned the LORD's commands and have followed the Baals. 19Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table." 20So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. (1 Kings 18:18-20) A Catholic religious order, the Carmelites, was founded on Mount Carmel in the 12th century by a certain Berthold (d. after 1185) who was either a pilgrim or crusader. The order grew to be one of the major Catholic religious orders worldwide. Prefixed to the 1281 Carmelite Constitution was this statement: "From the times when the prophet Elias (Elijah) and Eliseus dwelt devoutly on Mount Carmel, holy fathers both of the old and new Testament..lived praiseworthy lives in holy penitence by the fountain of Elias in a holy succession uninterruptedly maintained." Carmelite tradition suggests that a community of Jewish hermits lived on Mount Carmel from the time of Elijah, although no documentary evidence of such a community exists.During World War I, Mount Carmel played a significant strategic role. The Battle of Megiddo took place at the head of a pass through the Carmel Ridge, which overlooks the Valley of Jezreel from the south. General Allenby led the British in the battle, which was the turning point in the war against the Ottoman Empire. Megiddo is the site mentioned in the Book of Revelation as the Battle of Armageddon.The remains of the Báb arrived the vicinity of Mount Carmel in 1899 and were first laid to rest within the Shrine in 1909. The Shrine of the Báb, completed in the 1950s, is on the side of Mount Carmel in the middle of the Bahá'í-owned terraces. Also located on Mount Carmel are a set of Bahá'í administrative buildings referred to as the Arc. The location was designated by the Faith's founder in the Tablet of Carmel. The mountain remains a sacred place for Bahá'ís around the world.Modern Essene groups point that Mount Carmel was the spiritual stronghold of the northern Essene movement - the "Nazareans" - described by the Church Father Epiphanius in his Panarion (1:18) and briefly noted by the historian Flavius Josephus in his War of the Jews. Excavations on Mount Carmel in 1958 uncovered what is seen as Elijah's altar, the cave where he lived, the fountain of Elijah, and the remains of an ancient monastery.TabunFrom 1930 to 1932, at Mount Carmel, Israel, Dorothy Garrod excavated Neanderthal and early modern human remains in the Carmel Caves of el-Wad, el-Tabun, and es- Skhul.""Photographs and diaries document the 1932 discovery at Mount Carmel, Palestine, of the Neanderthal female skeleton, Tabun I, one of the most important human fossils ever found (Christopher Stringer, custodian of Tabun I, Natural History Museum, quoted in the Exhibition in Honour of D.A.E. Garrod, Callander and Smith, 1998). The excavation of Tabun produced the longest stratigraphic record in the region, spanning 600,000 or more years of human activity.""The long cultural sequence exposed in the four caves and rock-shelters that make up the Nahal Me'arot site, Tabun, Jamal, el-Wad and Skhul, extends from the Lower Palaeolithic to the present day, thus representing nearly a million years of human evolution. In addition to evidence for numerous palaeo-environmental fluctuations, there are also several well-preserved burials of two Middle Paleolithic human types (Neanderthals and Early Anatomically Modern Humans) and passage from nomadic hunter-gatherer groups to complex, sedentary agricultural societies is extensively documented at the site. Taken together, these emphasize the paramount significance of the Mount Carmel caves for the study of human cultural and biological evolution within the framework of palaeo-ecological changes." As a sacred locationIn the ancient Canaanite religion, high places were frequently considered to be sacred, and Mount Carmel appears to have been no exception; Thutmose III lists a holy headland among his Palestinian territories, and if this equates to Carmel, as Egyptologists such as Maspero believe, then it would indicate that the mountain headland was considered sacred from at least the 15th century BC. According to the Books of Kings, there was an altar to Yahweh on the mountain, which had fallen into ruin by the time of Ahab, but was rebuilt by Elijah. Iamblichus describes Pythagoras visiting the mountain on account of its reputation for sacredness, stating that it was the most holy of all mountains, and access was forbidden to many, while Tacitus states that there was an oracle situated there, which Vespasian visited for a consultation; Tacitus states that there was an altar there, but without any image upon it, and without a temple around it.ElijahIn mainstream Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought, it is Elijah that is indelibly associated with the mountain, and he is regarded as having sometimes resided in a grotto on the mountain. In the Books of Kings, Elijah is described as challenging 450 prophets of a particular Baal to a contest at the altar on Mount Carmel to determine whose deity was genuinely in control of the Kingdom of Israel; since the narrative is set during the rule of Ahab and his association with the Phoenicians, biblical scholars suspect that the Baal in question was probably Melqart.According to the biblical account, the challenge was to persuade a deity, light a sacrifice by fire, and after the others had failed to achieve this, Elijah poured water on his sacrifice, prostrated himself in prayer, and the fire fell from the sky, and consumed the sacrifice; shortly afterwards, in the account, clouds gather, the sky turns black, and it rains heavily. Scholars think that the account represents a more legendary description of a storm, during which the altar on Mount Carmel was struck by lightning; rather than a prayer for fire, scholars think that the account of Elijah's actions at the altar actually describes a rain-making ritual.Though there is no biblical reason to assume that the account of Elijah's victory refers to any particular part of Mount Carmel, Islamic tradition places it at a point known as El-Maharrakah, meaning the burning. In 1958, archaeologists discovered something on the mountain range that resembled an altar, which they assumed must have been Elijah's altar.Song of Solomon 4Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon
by the gate of Bath Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon
looking toward Damascus.5Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.
Your hair is like royal tapestry;
the king is held captive by its tresses.
6How beautiful you are and how pleasing,
O love, with your delights! (Song of Solomon 7:4-6) Carmelites A statue of Elijah in the crypt of the monastery on Mount Carmel. According to Carmelite tradition, the crypt was originally the Cave of ElijahA Catholic religious order was founded on Mount Carmel in the 12th century, named the Carmelites, in reference to the mountain range; the founder was a certain Berthold (who died at an unknown point after 1185), who was either a pilgrim or crusader. The order was founded at the site that it claimed had once been the location of Elijah's cave, 1700 feet above sea level at the northwestern end of the mountain range; this, perhaps not co-incidentally, is also the highest natural point of the entire mountain range. Though there is no documentary evidence to support it, Carmelite tradition suggests that a community of Jewish hermits had lived at the site from the time of Elijah until the Carmelites were founded there; prefixed to the Carmelite Constitution of 1281 was the claim that from the time when Elijah and Elisha had dwelt devoutly on Mount Carmel, priests and prophets, Jewish and Christian, had lived praiseworthy lives in holy penitence adjacent to the site of the fountain of Elisha, in an uninterrupted succession.A Carmelite monastery was founded at the site shortly after the order itself was created, and was dedicated to Mary, in her incarnation as sea star (stella maris in Latin) - a common medieval presentation of Mary; although Louis IX (of France) is commonly referred to as the founder, he was not, and had merely visited it in 1252. The Carmelite order grew to be one of the major Catholic religious orders worldwide, although the monastery at Carmel had a less successful history. During the Crusades the monastery frequently changed hands, frequently finding itself to have become a mosque; under Islamic control, the location came to be known as El-Maharrakah, meaning place of burning, in reference to the account of Elijah's challenge to the priests of Hadad. In 1799 the building was finally converted into a hospital, by Napoleon, but in 1821 the surviving structure was destroyed by the pasha of Damascus. A new monastery was later constructed directly over a nearby cave, after funds were collected by the Carmelite order for restoration of the monastery; the cave, which now forms the crypt of the monastic church, is termed Elijah's grotto by the monks.One of the oldest scapulars is associated with Mount Carmel, and the Carmelites. According to Carmelite legend, the Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was first given to Simon Stock, an English Carmelite, by Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Carmelites sometimes refer to Mary as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in honour of the legend, and celebrate a feast day dedicated to her in this guise, on the 16 July.Bahá'í Faith Mount Carmel is considered a sacred place for Bahá'ís around the world, and is the location of the Bahá'í World Centre and the Shrine of the Báb. The location of the Bahá'í holy places has its roots to the imprisonment of the religion's founder, Bahá'u'lláh, near Haifa by the Ottoman Empire during the Ottoman Empire's rule over Palestine.The Shrine of the Báb is a structure where the remains of the Báb, the founder of Bábism and forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh in the Bahá'í Faith, have been laid to rest. The shrine's precise location on Mount Carmel was designated by Bahá'u'lláh himself and the the Báb's remains were laid to rest on March 21, 1909 in a six-room mausoleum made of local stone. The construction of the shrine with a golden dome was completed over the mausoleum in 1953, and a series of decorative terraces around the shrine were completed in 2001.Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, writing in the Tablet of Carmel, designated the area around the shrine as the location for the administrative headquarters of the religion; the Bahá'í administrative buildings were constructed adjacent to the decorative terraces, and are referred to as the Arc, on account of their physical arrangement. |
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