Mount Nebo is a site fixed beyond dispute. It retains the name Neba, which applies to the highest knoll on a long spur running out west from the plateau between Heshbon and Medeba. As already noted, there are traces of a ring of dolmens round the knoll, and it is curious that none of these particular examples are mentioned in any previous account of the site, as far as I can find. Lower down on the ridge is the ruin Siaghah, preserving the name Seath, which stands instead of Nebo in the Targum of Onkelos. To the north are the “Springs of Moses,” of which we have perhaps an early account in the sixth century. Antoninus the pilgrim says that certain hot springs called “Baths of Moses,” where lepers were cleansed, existed east of Jordan.[56] The plateau close to the Nebo knoll is called “Field of Zophim” in the Bible, and the name, I think, still survives close by in the Tal’at es Sufa, or “Ascent of Zoph,” on the north side of the spur. The view from the knoll or from the ruin of Siaghah is much the same. It cannot compare with the panorama from Hermon, and there are indeed several places east of Jordan which command a finer view; but Nebo is the nearest mountain to Shittim in the Jordan Valley, from which an extensive view is visible.
On the east the eye is met at a distance of only two miles by the edge of the Moab plateau, which shelves away eastward; and on the south a long ridge closes the scene at a distance of about five miles. On the north-east the hillocks on which Heshbon and Elealah were built stand above the plateau, and Jebel Osh’a in Gilead appears behind, shutting out the Sea of Galilee and Hermon. It is on the west that the scene is most extensive, including all the Judean watershed, all Samaria and Lower Galilee, to Tabor and Belvoir. Carmel is hidden behind Jebel Hazkin, which is close to the Jordan Valley, and 700 feet higher than Carmel.
On the south-west is Yukin, the city of the Kenites, perched high above the Jeshimon or desert of Judah, and in front of the great precipices of that desert lies the Dead Sea, of which the northern half only is seen. Herodium, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem are all in sight, and beneath are the traditional tomb of Moses--in the desert of Judah--the precipice of Quarantania, and below this the dark groves round ancient Jericho.