'Mount Saint Elias/Elijah'; Hebrew: הַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ אֵלִיָּהוּ, romanized: Har haQadosh Eliyahu), is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast.

[5] Isachar Tamar [he] suggests connecting it to the yellow "karmel lily" mentioned by the Jerusalem Talmud (y. Sukkah 3:6 ) in the version of REbYH.

As part of a 1929–1934 campaign,[9] between 1930 and 1932, Dorothy Garrod excavated four caves, and a number of rock shelters, in the Carmel mountain range at el-Wad, el-Tabun, and Es Skhul.

[12] The four caves and rock-shelters, Tabun, Jamal, el-Wad, and Skhul, together yield results from the Lower Paleolithic to the present day, representing roughly a million years of human evolution.

[13] There are also several well-preserved burials of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens and the transition 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.

[15][16][17] The World Heritage Site includes four caves (Tabun, Jamal, el-Wad, and Skhul) on the southern side of the Nahal Me'arot/Wadi El-Mughara Valley.

In December 2020, archaeologists from the University of Haifa announced the discovery of the oldest known tool used for grinding or scraping, dating back about 350,000 years at the Tabun Cave at Mount Carmel site.

[7][22] According to the Books of Kings, Elisha travelled to Carmel straight after cursing a group of young men because they had mocked him and the ascension of Elijah by jeering, "Go on up, bald man!"

Despite facing attacks from neighboring villages, the largest towns, Isfiya and Daliyat al-Carmel, persevered, possibly following the withdrawal of Ibrahim Pasha's army.

[29] In ancient Canaanite culture, high places were frequently considered to be sacred, and Mount Carmel appears to have been no exception; Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III lists a holy headland among his Canaanite 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 BCE.

In the Books of Kings, Elijah challenges 450 prophets of Baal to a contest at the altar on Mount Carmel to determine whose deity was genuinely in control of the Kingdom of Israel.

Fire fell and consumed the sacrifice, wood, stones, soil and water, which prompted the Israelite witnesses to proclaim, "Yahweh, He is God!

Though there is no biblical reason to assume that the account of Elijah's victory refers to any particular part of Mount Carmel,[7] Islamic tradition places it at a point known as El-Maharrakah or rather El-Muhraqa, meaning the burning.

[38] In the original Rule or 'Letter of Life' given by Albert, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem who was resident in Acre, around the year 1210, this hermit is referred to simply as 'Brother B'; he probably died around the date 1210 and could have been either a pilgrim, someone serving out a penance or a crusader who had stayed in the Holy Land.

[8] The Order was founded at the site that it claimed had been the location of Elijah's cave, 1,700 feet (520 m) above sea level at the northwestern end of the mountain range.

[8] The cave, which now forms the crypt of the monastic church, is termed "Elijah's grotto" by the Discalced Carmelite friars who have custody of the monastery.

[8] Under Islamic control the location at the highest peak of the Carmel came to be known as "El-Maharrakah" or "El-Muhraqa", meaning "place of burning", in reference to the account of Elijah's challenge to the priests of Hadad.

The shrine's precise location on Mount Carmel was designated by Bahá'u'lláh himself and the Báb's remains were laid to rest on March 21, 1909, in a six-room mausoleum made of local stone.