A History of Sinai

THE close of the eighteenth century witnessed events in Egypt which directly affected the conditions of life in Sinai; they further reduced the man of the desert in his resources.

THE writings of the hermits from the fifth century onwards throw light on the aspirations and the attitude of mind of these men of the desert, to whom the interests of ordinary...

A NEW era in the history of Sinai began with the advent of the Christian hermit. The desert has ever been the home of liberty. The desire to follow the New Way, coupled with the...

FROM the reign of the emperor Justinian (527-563) dates the fortification of the hermit settlement known as the Bush, which was thereby transformed into a convent, and as such,...

VARIOUS circumstances combined to raise the convent of Sinai to great prosperity during the early Middle Ages. On the one side it received regular contributions in money from Eu...

The earliest Egyptian rock inscription at Maghara represents the Pharaoh as a smiter, and describes him as such with the signs of a hand, an eagle, and the determinative of hill...

THE monuments which the Egyptians erected in Sinai are evidence of their continued connection with the place. These were examined and studied in the winter of 1906.[42] They com...

THE size of the caravans that plied between Sinai and Egypt were a source of wonder to the mediæval pilgrim. This development of trade received a check in the sixteenth century,...

AFTER the close of the Twelfth Dynasty, the Egyptians ceased for centuries to come to Sinai. The reason was that foreigners, for over a hundred years, ruled in the Nile valley w...

A KEEN interest in the Near East was aroused in Europe by the Crusades. At their conclusion travellers of every kind, more especially pilgrims and merchants, started for Palesti...

THE collapse of the Roman power in the East prepared the way for the Moslim conquest of Sinai and Egypt. During the lifetime of Mohammad changes were effected along peaceful lin...

master of Damascus and king of Cœle-Syria. Their control over the trade-routes extended in many directions. Along the Mediterranean on the north coast of Sinai they secured a fo...

SINAI is the peninsula, triangular in form, which projects into the Red Sea between Egypt and Arabia. The name used to be applied to the mountainous region of the south, now it...

THE war of retaliation, which the Sultan waged against the king of Cyprus, interrupted the flow of pilgrims to the East in the first half of the fifteenth century. Moreover, the...

The identification of Ramessu II, a king of the Nineteenth Dynasty, as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, clashes with the information reaching us through Alexandrian and Syriac sources...

of them contain one stone of larger size that was set up at one side of the enclosure and propped up by other stones. There were also some uprights without enclosures.

HAVING reached the goal of their pilgrimage, the Israelites encamped near the Mount of God, Har-ha-elohim (Exod. xviii. 5), a word which can also be read as height of the priest...

Robinson located Hazeroth at Ain Hudhera.[107] But if the original goal of the Israelites was Serabit, they would be moving in a northerly or north-easterly direction. In the op...

THE existence of the sanctuary at Serabit in Sinai was unknown to Europeans till the year 1762, when it was chanced upon by Carsten Niebuhr, who did not, however, record its nam...

THE last Pharaoh whose activity was recorded in Serabit was Ramessu VI (B.C. 1161-1156), after whose reign information about the peninsula ceased for several centuries. The road...

have settled there. Athos has been identified as Pithom. More probably it was Pa-kesem, the chief city of Goshen. The word Hermiouthian indicates moon-worshippers, as Hermes, th...

THE name Sinai is first mentioned in the Song of Deborah (Judges v. 5), which is dated to about B.C. 1000, and in the story of Exodus. It perpetuates the early form of belief of...

THE passage of the Israelites through Sinai forms the most thrilling episode in the history of the peninsula. The how and when and where of this journey periodically engage atte...

land of Goshen could contain, and the land of Sinai could receive. Poetic licence or a mistake of the scribe was therefore put forward as an explanation. Prof. Petrie proposed a...