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Mt
Sinai- St Catherine
Biblical
Site
Tour from Cairo with stay |
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Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula stretches into
Egypt’s Red Sea. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty due to the
red sandstone mountains glistening in the crystal clear waters of the Red
Sea. The Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, divides the Peninsula
geographically from its motherland connecting the Mediterranean Sea in the
north with the Gulf of Suez in the south. Some twenty million years ago
Sinai was connected with Egypt and the Saudi Arabian Peninsula as part of
the same land formation. St. Catherine's has a protective fortification, with granite walls 40 to 200 feet tall, surrounded by gardens and cypresses. Prior to probably the twentieth century, the only entrance to St Catherine's was a small door 30 feet high, where provisions and people were lifted with a system of pulleys, and where food was often lowered to nomads. It has withstood numerous attacks over its 14 hundred year existence thus protecting a rich store of art, and today, while it is one of the oldest monasteries in the world, its original, preserved state is unmatched. The
monastery has the second largest collection of illuminated manuscripts
(The Vatican has the largest). The collection consists
of some 3,500 volumes in Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Slavic,
Syrian, Georgian and other languages. Around the year 1850, the fourth
century Codex Sinaiticus, which is now in the British Museum in London,
was discovered here. The Monastery even has a small 10th or 11th century
mosque which was probably built to appease the Islamic authorities of the
time. There is also a small chapel (the Chapel of St. Trephine, also known
as the Skull House) which houses the skulls of deceased monks. The Fatimid
Mosque, which lies within the walls of St. Catherine's Monastery
* Euro rate varies depending on exchange rate
* Euro rate varies depending on exchange rate Hotels used in Sharm El Sheik
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