A history of Sinai

In the winter of 1905-6, Professor Flinders Petrie undertook the examination of the Egyptian remains in Sinai. After working at Wadi Maghara he removed into the Wadi Umm Agraf to copy the inscriptions and excavate the temple ruins at Serabit. His work is described in "Researches in Sinai, 1906," and the inscriptions are in course of publication by the Egypt Exploration Fund.

Among the workers at Serabit was me. I had long been interested in the hermit life of the peninsula and in the growing belief that the Gebel Musa was not the Mountain of the Law. The excavations at Serabit and the non-Egyptian character of the ancient hill sanctuary supplied new material for reflection. In the hours spent in sorting fragments of temple offerings and copying temple inscriptions, it occurred to me that we might be on the site which meant so much in the history of religion. Studies made after our return suggested further points of interest. The outcome is this little history which will. I trust, appeal to those who take an interest in the reconstruction of the past and in the successive stages of religious development.

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 is made to comprise the land as far north as the Mediterranean. Sinai is famous for the part which it has played in the religious history of mankind. It was at one time a centre of moon-cult before it became the seat of the promulgation of the Law to the Jews at the time of Moses.

In Christian times it was one of the chief homes of the hermits, and the possession of the relics of St. Katherine in the great convent of the south, caused Sinai to be included in the Long Pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages.

The history of Sinai deals with the people who visited the peninsula at different times, rather than with its permanent inhabitants, who, in the course of the centuries, seem to have undergone little change. They still live the life of the huntsman and the herdsman as in the days of Ishmael, sleeping in the open, and adding to their meagre resources by carrying dates and charcoal to the nearest centres of intercourse, in return for which they receive com. The country geographically belongs to Egypt, ethnologically jto Arabia. It naturally falls into three regions. ' In the north, following the coastline of the Mediterranean, lies a zone of drift sand, narrowest near Rafa on the borders of Palestine, widening as it is prolonged in a westerly direction

Some contents of the book

Monument of Semerkhet in Sinai
Khufu
the Pepys
Amen-em-hats and Sen-users
Hyksos Conquest
Time of Abraham and Joseph
Amen Hotep and Tahutmes
Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), time of Moses
Ramesses
Ramesses II

Author: Lina Eckenstein
Publication Date:1921

Download

A history of Sinai - by Lina Eckenstein - PDF ebook