TRAVEL   EGYPT   TOURS 

Mount Sinai Is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai.

 

The latter is mentioned many times in the Book of Exodus in the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran. According to Jewish,Christian and Islamic tradition, the biblical Mount Sinai was the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments.

The oldest record of monastic life at Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a woman named Egeria about 381-384. She visited many places around the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, where, according to the Hebrew Bible, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God.

 

The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527-565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush (also known as "Saint Helen's Chapel") ordered to be built by Helena, the mother of Constantine I, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush. The living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses.

Structurally the monastery's king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world. The site is sacred to Christianity and Islam.A Fatimid mosque was built within the walls of the monastery, but it has never been used since it is not correctly oriented towards Mecca.

 

The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Georgian, and Aramaic texts.

The Monastery also has a copy of the Achtiname, in which the Prophet Muhammad is claimed to have bestowed his protection upon the monastery.

The complex houses irreplaceable works of art: mosaics, the best collection of early icons in the world, many in encaustic, as well as liturgical objects, chalices and reliquaries, and church buildings.

The large icon collection begins with a few dating to the 5th (possibly) and 6th centuries, which are unique survivals, the monastery having been untouched by Byzantine iconoclasm, and never sacked. The oldest icon on an Old Testament theme is also preserved there.

A project to catalogue the collections has been ongoing since the 1960s.

 

The monastery was an important centre for the development of the hybrid style of Crusader art, and still retains over 120 icons created in the style, by far the largest collection in existence. Many were evidently created by Latins, probably monks, based in or around the monastery in the 13th century.

 

Visit St. Catherine Monastery

 

All week days except Sundays

 

Explore one of the oldest Greek - Orthodox Monasteries in the world. Place of the Ten Commandments, the Burning Bush and Moses Well. St. Catherine has been classified by UNESCO as an international heritage.

Trousers are a “must” to enter the church.

End the tour with a visit of Dahab. 

 

Departure Sharm at 5.00 AM and returning Sharm around 5.00 PM.