During the years 1977-1982, while carrying out archaeological surveys and excavations in the southern Negev and eastern Sinai, I encountered a number of intriguing sites that had escaped serious scrutiny by previous explorers and surveyors. Many of these seemed to be of a cultic nature, although proof of this was not immediately forthcoming. This paper will briefly describe these cult sites and discuss some of their ramifications.(The other types of desert sites will be published in the near future.) The cult sites fall into three categories:(I) massebot sites,(2)" open sanctuaries" and (3) cairn lines (Fig. I).