Bountiful (Book of Mormon)

Upon their arrival at the coast, the Book of Mormon states that Lehi's group named the sea Irreantum, which is said to mean "many waters" (1 Nephi 17:5).

LDS scholar Hugh Nibley first proposed this location as Nephi's Bountiful in an article published in the Improvement Era in 1950.

[8][9] These additional points that Kohr Kharfot lack include accessibility for caravan arrival, rich abundance of timber-bearing ancient and modern groves, fresh vegetation extending from Kohr Rori many miles up the Wadi Darbat, large amounts of year-round fresh water teeming with aquatic and wildlife, abundance of wild honey, an inland natural port framed by twin integral seaside cliffs, a readily accessible mountain backdrop for Nephi's prayers, annual monsoon season floods that easily transport timber from Wadi Darbat directly to the seaside Kohr Rori port, and a protected harbor in which a ship could be rigged and seamanship could be learned.

The competing site Kohr Kharfot remains an uninhabited and inaccessible rock canyon defile with no natural harbor except as a temporary resting spot for passing fisherman and wandering herders due to its relatively undesirable location; in fact the best and almost only access to this Kharfot is by sea.

[10][11] Lehi's general route from Jerusalem to the Dhofar area followed many elements of the Frankincense Trail which logically places Kohr Rori as a natural terminus.

[citation needed] Extensive archaeological research by many scholars including the 2008 work sponsored by the Omani government have found Iron tools, a temple culture with ritual cleansing and altar worship, ship building remains, and many other aspects congruent with the desirability of Kohr Rori.

(Isaiah 35:1-2) While Kohr Kharfot supports the remains of one stone goat corral and shepherd's shelter (mistakenly identified by one researcher as the remains of a Nephi-built Temple built after the pattern of Solomon's Temple), the bounty of Kohr Rofi is exemplified by hundreds of such structures both ancient and modern.

Many LDS researchers have evolved in their thinking and now consider Kohr Rori as the most natural and logical location on the Dhofar Coast for Nephi's "Bountiful."

[citation needed] The heartland theory has Nephi's family arriving in the Florida panhandle and gradually moving north through the Tennessee and Mississippi River valleys, eventually establishing their civilization in the Ohio area and covering an area from the Mississippi River, east to New York, and south to Florida.