On April 2, 2000 three BYU geology professors and a professional geologist reported on their work of evaluating the Dhofar region of southern Oman as the proposed region of Nephi’s Bountiful. According to Eugene Clark, although there are some 230 springs or seeps in the region, only a dozen or so flow year-round. He cautioned that investigators might see some springs and farming areas and assume those areas have always been fertile, but they are often mistaken. Those areas can be relatively new, made fertile with the advent of electricity for pumping water from distant areas. Conversely, because some of the springs that used to carry water have recently been capped in order for the water to be transported to the towns, the wadis which they fed are now dry. Clark also said that most of the soils in the Dhofar area are quite poor but that the best soils are found in the Salalah area. [Ronald A. Harris, Eugene E. Clark, Jeffrey D. Keith, and W. Revell Phillips, “Nephi’s Tools: An Overview of Iron Ore Occurrences in Oman,” Brown Bag Lecture on 5 April, 2000. Reported in “FARMS Project Reports,” in Insights, May 2000, p. 7]
1 Nephi 17:6 We did pitch our tents by the seashore ([Illustration] Family of Lehi Camped in Promised Land. Artist: Gary Kapp. [Thomas R. Valletta ed., The Book of Mormon for Latter-day Saint Families, 1999, p. 71]
“We Did Pitch Our Tents by the Seashore”
Potter and Wellington write that one of the criteria met by their proposed land of Bountiful is that it was accessible to the seashore. Parallel to the southern coast of Arabia there is a mountain range which runs from Yemen to Dhofar. As Nephi looked south out over the ocean from the mountains of Dhofar, the next landfall would have been Antarctica. In order to reach the coast from the trail, the family had to cross the mountains. Camels laden with four to five hundred pounds of tents and provisions could only cross the mountains on established trails through passes. Maps of the ancient trade routes in southern Arabia show only four passes through the mountains to the coast. (see illustration) The first is through wadi Hardabah to the port of Aden in Yemen; the second is through wadi Hajar in Yemen to the port of Cana; the third is through wadi Hadramaut to Sayhut; and the fourth is through a pass in the mountains to the Salalah plain and Ain Humran. This pass is now the modern Salalah/Thammarit road. The misguided idea that Lehi’s family forged their own trail and hid out in an isolated place in Dhofar is highly unlikely. The Frankincense lands were the source of great wealth, and were heavily guarded. The Roman historian Pliny recorded how in the Hadramaut those who dared leave the official frankincense road were summarily executed.
Locations west of the Salalah plain, namely the inlets of Dhalkut, Kharfot and Rakhyut are not readily accessible from the hinterland. To approach Dhalkut from the desert would take a 75 kilometer journey across a 5,000 foot mountain range. Wadi Sayq, Kharfot and Rakhyut would be about a 50 kilometer journey across the same mountain range. There are no records of any ancient trails that lead inland to these areas. In fact, the only recorded ancient trail to the coast of Dhofar is at Salalah. [George Potter and Richard Wellington, Discovering the Lehi-Nephi Trail, Unpublished Manuscript, 2000, pp. 185-186]
1 Nephi 17:6 We Did Pitch Our Tents by the Seashore (Accessible seashore--Potter Theory): ([Illustration]) Map of southeastern Arabia showing the final stages of Lehi’s journey according to the Astons. [Warren P. Aston & Michaela Knoth Aston, In the Footsteps of Lehi, p. 11]