HOR, MOUNT (htn-1, (Hcb. ",hore haw hawr', "mountain, the mountain," i. c. the moun tain of mountains), the name of two mountains.
ing that the whole range of Scir was ancient:v called by that name ; yet from its height and the conspicuous manner in which it rises among the. surrounding rocks, it seems not unlikely to have been the chosen scene of the high-priest's death (Kinnear, p. 127). To this may be added that Josephus affirms Mount Hor to have been near Petra ; and near that place there is certainly no mountain which can contest the distinction with the one now in view. The base of the highest pin nacle of this mountain is in fact but a little re moved from the skirts of the city to the westward. Much juniper grows on the mountain, almost to the very suminit, and inany flowering plants. On the top there is an overhanging shelf in the rock which forms a sort of cavern. The tomh itself is enclosed in a small building. differing not at all in external form and appearance from those of Ma lionimedan sa;nts common throughout every prov ince of Turkey. It has probahly been rebuilt at no remote period: some small columns are bedded in the walls, and some fragments of granite and slabs of white marble are scattered about. The door i•; near the southwest angle, within which a constructed tomb, with a pall thrown over it, presents itself immediately upon entering: it is patched together out of fragments of stone and marble that have made part of other fabrics.
Not far from the northwest angle is a passage, descending by steps to a vault or grotto beneath. The roof is covered, but the whole is rude, ill fashioned, and quite dark. Towards the further end of this dark vault are the two corresponding leaves of an iron grating, which formerly pre vented all nearer approach to the tomb; they have, however, been thrown down.
(2) The View. The view from the summit of the edifice is extremely extensive in every direc tion, and the eye rests on few objects which it can clearly distinguish to give a name to, although an excellent idea is obtained of the general face and features of the country. The chain of Idu mman mountains which forms the western shore of the Dead Sea seems to run on to the south ward, though losing considerably in height. They
appear in this point of view barren and desolate. Below them is spread out a white sandy plain, seamed with the beds of occasional torrents, and presenting much the same features as the most desert parts of the Ghor.
(3) Geology. "Mount Hor is formed of red dish sandstone and conglomerate (Nubian sand stone' of Russegger) of Cretaceous age ; the beds rising in a precipitous wall of natural masonry tier above tier, and presenting a bold front to wards the west. These huge beds of sandstone compose the upper part of the ridge to a depth of about a thousand feet from the summit, where they rest on a solid foundation of granite and porphyry of great geological antiquity, associated with which, in some way not very clear, are masses of agglomerate, beds of ash and dykes of igneous rock, all of volcanic origin, but of an age anterior to the Cretaceous sandstone. This latter formation dips towards the east, and gradually descends in the direction of the Wady Musa, where it forms the cliffs which surround the city of Petra. Along the flanks of the escarpment of the Arabian Desert to the eastward the sand stone formation passes below the white marls and limestones of Upper Cretaceous age, which form the surface of the plain at a lcvel of over 5,000 feet above the sea." (E. Hall, Hastings' Bib.
Dia.) 2. A mountain named only in Num. xxxiv:7, 8, as one of the marks in the northern boundary of the land of Promise. Its identification is diffi cult. The Mediterranean was the western bound ary; the first point was Mount Hor, and the second "the cntrance of Hamath." If Dr. Porter's identification of the latter with the pass at Kalat el-Husn, close to Hums, is correct, then Mount Hor can be nothing else than the great chain of Lebanon itself. (Barnes, Bib. Dia.) "lt is so clearly the natural northern boundary of the coun try, that there seems no reason to doubt that the whole range is intended by the term Hor." (Smith, Bib. Dict., s. v .)