Saint Catherine's Monastery

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Saint Catherine's Monastery (Template:Langx Template:Transliteration, Template:Langx Template:Efn), officially the Sacred Autonomous Royal Monastery of Saint Catherine of the Holy and God-Trodden Mount Sinai, is a Christian monastery located in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Located at the foot of Mount Sinai, it was built between 548 and 565, and is the world's oldest continuously-inhabited Christian monastery.<ref>Din, Mursi Saad El et al.. Sinai: The Site & The History: Essays. New York: New York University Press, 1998. p. 80. Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="LeroyCollin2004">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The monastery was built by order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, enclosing what is claimed to be the burning bush seen by Moses.<ref name="Vetus Testam."/><ref name=":3"/><ref name=":0"/> Centuries later, the purported body of Catherine of Alexandria, said to have been found in the area, was taken to the monastery; Catherine's relics turned it into an important Christian pilgrimage, and the monastery was eventually renamed after the saint.

Controlled by the autonomous Church of Sinai, which is part of the wider Greek Orthodox Church, the monastery became a World Heritage Site in 2002 for its unique importance to the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.<ref name=":02">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The monastery library holds unique and rare works, such as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Syriac Sinaiticus,<ref>Sebastian P. Brock, Two Hitherto Unattested Passages of the Old Syriac Gospels in Palimpsests from St Catherie's Monastery, Sinai, Δελτίο Βιβλικῶν Μελετῶν 31A, 2016, pp. 7–18.</ref><ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/> as well as a collection of early Christian icons, including the earliest known depiction of Christ Pantocrator.

Saint Catherine's has as its backdrop the three mountains it lies near: Willow Peak (possibly the biblical Mount Horeb, peak c.Template:Cvt west); Jebel Arrenziyeb, peak c.Template:Thinspace1km south; and Mount Sinai (locally, Template:Transliteration, by tradition identified with the biblical Mount Sinai; peak Template:Circa south).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Christian traditionsEdit

The monastery was built around the location of what is traditionally considered to be the place of the burning bush seen by the Hebrew prophet Moses.<ref name="Vetus Testam."/><ref name="EB 1998">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> Saint Catherine's monastery also encloses the "Well of Moses", where Moses is said to have met his future wife, Zipporah.<ref name="Vetus Testam.">Template:Cite journal</ref> The well is still today one of the monastery's main sources of water. The site is considered sacred by the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.<ref name=":02"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Centuries after its foundation, the body of Saint Catherine of Alexandria was said to be found in a cave in the area. The relics of Saint Catherine, kept to this day inside the monastery, have made it a favourite site of pilgrimage.<ref name="EB 1998" /> The patronal feast of the monastery is the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Saint Catherine Sinai.jpg

Saint Catherine's Monastery with Willow Peak (traditionally considered Mount Horeb) in the background
Burning Bush, St Catherine's Monastery.jpg

The monastery's centuries-old bramble is considered to be the biblical burning bush.
Moses-well-saint-catherine-church.jpg

"Well of Moses", where Moses is said to have met his future wife, Zipporah
Ossuary Sinai.jpg

Skeleton of the monk Stephanos, in his robe, in front of the ossuary

HistoryEdit

The oldest record of monastic life at Mount Sinai comes from the Peregrinatio or Itinerarium Egeriae, a travel journal written in Latin by a female Christian pilgrim named Egeria (formerly identified as Sylvia of Aquitaine) about 381/2–386.<ref>John Wilkinson (2015), Egeria's travels (Oxford: Oxbow Books). Template:ISBN</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The monastery was built by order of the Byzantine 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 Empress-Consort Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref> The bush on the grounds is said to be the one seen by Moses.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> Structurally the monastery's king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world.<ref>Feilden, Bernard M.. Conservation of historic buildings. 3rd ed. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2003. p. 51. Template:ISBN</ref>

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From the time of the First Crusade, the presence of Crusaders in the Sinai until 1270 spurred the interest of European Christians. It increased the number of intrepid pilgrims who visited the monastery. Its dependencies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus and Constantinople supported the monastery. Throughout the Middle Ages, the monastery had a multiethnic profile, with monks of Arab, Greek, Syrian, Slavonic and Georgian origin. However, in the Ottoman period, the monastic community became almost exclusively Greek Orthodox, possibly due to the decline and depopulation of Transjordanian Christian towns. From the 1480s onwards, Wallachian princes began sending alms to the monastery.<ref name="Panchenko">Template:Cite book</ref>

A mosque was created by converting an existing chapel during the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), which was in regular use until the era of the Mamluk Sultanate in the 13th century and is still in use today on special occasions. During the Ottoman Empire, the mosque was in desolate condition; it was restored in the early 20th century.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

During the seventh century, the isolated Christian anchorites of the Sinai were eliminated: only the fortified monastery remained. The monastery is surrounded by the massive fortifications that have preserved it. Until the twentieth century, access was through a door high in the outer walls.

The monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitute the entire Church of Sinai, which is headed by an archbishop, who is also the abbot of the monastery. The exact administrative status of the church within the Eastern Orthodox Church is ambiguous: by some, including the church itself,<ref>The official Website describes the Church as "διοικητικά "αδούλωτος, ασύδοτος, ακαταπάτητος, πάντη και παντός ελευθέρα, αυτοκέφαλος" or "administratively 'free, loose, untresspassable, free from anyone at any time, autocephalous'" (see link below)</ref> it is considered autocephalous,<ref>Weitzmann, Kurt, in: Galey, John; Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine, p. 14, Doubleday, New York (1980) Template:ISBN</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Under Introduction Bishop Kallistos says that Sinai is "autocephalous"; under The twentieth century, Greeks and Arabs he states that "There is some disagreement about whether the monastery should be termed an 'autocephalous' or merely an 'autonomous' Church."</ref> by others an autonomous church under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem.<ref>The Orthodox Church of Mount Sinai CNEWA Canada, "A papal agency for humanitarian and pastoral support" Template:Webarchive</ref> The archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem; in recent centuries, he has usually resided in Cairo. During the period of the Crusades, which was marked by bitterness between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, the monastery was patronized by both the Byzantine emperors and the rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and their respective courts.

Dominican theologian Felix Fabri visited the monastery in the 15th century and provided a detailed account. He also described the monastery's gardens, noting the presence of "tall fruit trees, salad herbs, grass, and grain," and "more than three thousand olive trees, many fig-trees and pomegranates, and a store of almonds and other fruits." The olives were used to produce oil for lighting lamps and as a relish in the kitchen.<ref>Felix Fabri, Vol II. Pt. II. Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society. p. 582</ref>

Template:Multiple image The monastery prospered for most of the Mamluk Sultanate, but as the Sultanate declined, it went through a crisis. While there had been several hundred monks in the mid-14th century, a hundred years later, there were only several dozen. Bedouins began harassing the community, robbing their property in the Christian coastal village of el-Tor. In 1505, the monastery was captured and sacked. Although the Sultan demanded that property be returned to the monks, the Mamluk government could not subdue the Bedouins and preserve order. The German explorer Martin Baumgarten visited the monastery in 1507 and noticed its decline.<ref name="Panchenko" />

On April 18, 2017, an attack by the Islamic State – Sinai Province at a checkpoint near the monastery killed one policeman and injured three police officers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Manuscripts and iconsEdit

The monastery's library, founded sometime between 527 and 565, is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest continuously operating library.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It preserves the world's second-largest collection of early codices and manuscripts, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite news</ref> It contains Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Syriac, Georgian, Arabic, Geʽez, Latin, Armenian, and Church Slavonic<ref>Jost Gippert, The Creation of the Caucasian Alphabets as Phenomenon of Cultural History, in Referate des Internationalen Symposiums (Wien, 1.-4. Dezember 2005), ed. by Werner Seibt, Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, pp. 39–50, Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2011.</ref> manuscripts and books, along with very rare Hebrew<ref>Bo Isaksson, "The Monastery of St. Catherine and the New Finds", in Built on Solid Rock: Studies in Honour of Professor Ebbe Egede Knudsen on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday April 11th 1997, edited by Elie Wardini, pp. 128–140, Oslo: Novus forlag, 1997.</ref> and Coptic books.<ref name="sinai.library.ucla">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:The Patent of Mohammed.jpg

Ashtiname of Muhammad, granting protection and other privileges to the followers of Jesus

In May 1844 and February 1859, Constantin von Tischendorf visited the monastery for research and discovered the Codex Sinaiticus, dating from the 4th century, at the time the oldest almost completely preserved manuscript of the Bible. The finding from 1859 left the monastery for Russia, in circumstances that had been long disputed. But in 2003 Russian scholars discovered the donation act for the manuscript signed by the Council of Cairo Metochion and Archbishop Callistratus on 13 November 1869. The monastery received 9000 rubles as a gift from Tsar Alexander II of Russia.<ref>The History of the acquisition of the Sinai Bible by the Russian Government in the context of recent findings in Russian archives (english Internetedition) Template:Webarchive. The article from A.V. Zakharova was first published in Montfaucon. Études de paléographie, de codicologie et de diplomatique, Moscow–St.Petersburg, 2007, pp. 209–266) see also Alexander Schick, Tischendorf und die älteste Bibel der Welt. Die Entdeckung des Codex Sinaiticus im Katharinenkloster (Tischendorf and the oldest Bible in the world – The discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus in St. Catherine's Monastery), Muldenhammer 2015, pp. 123–128, 145–155.</ref> The Codex was sold by Stalin in 1933 to the British Museum and is now in the British Library, London, where it is on public display. Prior to September 1, 2009, a previously unseen fragment of Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in the monastery's library,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> as well as among the New Finds of 1975.<ref>David C. Parker (2010), CODEX SINAITICUS: The Story of the World's Oldest Bible. London. British Library, p. 18. Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/> On other visits (1855, 1857) Constantin von Tischendorf also amassed their more valuable manuscripts (Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Georgian, Syriac) and took them with him to St. Petersburg and Leipzig, where they are stored today.<ref>M. F. Brosset (1858), Note sur un manuscrit géorgien de la Bibliothèque Impériale publique et provenant de M. Tischendorf, Mélanges Asiatiques 3, pp. 264–280.</ref><ref>N. Pigoulewsky (1934), Fragments syro-palestiniens des Psaumes CXXIII-IV, Revue Biblique 43, pp. 519–527.</ref><ref>N. Pigoulewski (1937), Manuscrits syriaques bibliques de Léningrad, Revue Biblique 46, pp. 83–92; N. Pigoulewski, Manuscrits syriaques bibliques de Léningrad (suite), Revue Biblique 46, 1937, pp. 225–230; 556–562.</ref><ref>Julius Assfalg (1963), Georgische Handschriften (= Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, III) (Wiesbaden); Julius Assfalg (1965), Syrische Handschriften (= Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, V) (Wiesbaden).</ref><ref>Sebastian P. Brock (2012), Sinai: a Meeting Point of Georgian with Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, in The Caucasus between East & West (Tbilisi), pp. 482–494.</ref><ref>Grigory Kessel (2016), Membra Disjecta Sinaitica I: A Reconstitution of the Syriac Galen Palimpsest, in André Binggili, et al. (eds.), Manuscripta Graeca et Orientalia: Mélanges monastiques et patristiques en l'honneur de Paul Géhin (Louvain: Peeters), pp. 469–498.</ref><ref>Paul Géhin (2017), Les manuscrits syriaques de parchemin du Sinaï et leur membra disjecta, CSCO 665 / Subsidia 136 (Louvain: Peeters).</ref>

In February 1892, Agnes S. Lewis discovered an early palimpsest manuscript of the Gospel in St Catherine Monastery's library that became known as the Syriac Sinaiticus and it remains in the monastery's possession.<ref>The text was deciphered by Francis C Burkitt and Robert L. Bensly, see Template:Cite book</ref> Agnes and her sister Margaret D. Gibson returned in 1893 with the Cambridge team of the two scholars that included their wives, and also J. Rendel Harris to photograph and transcribe the manuscript in its entirety, as well as to prepare the first catalogues of the Syriac and Arabic manuscripts.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Agnes Smith Lewis (1894), Catalogue of the Syriac MSS. in the Convent of S. Catharine on Mount Sinai, Studia Sinaitica, I (London: C. J. Clay and Sons).</ref><ref>Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1894), Catalogue of the Arabic mss. in the Convent of Saint Catharine on Mount Sinai. Studia Sinaitica, III (London: C. J. Clay and Sons).</ref> Only among the New Finds two additional palimpsest manuscripts came to light containing additional passages of the Old Syriac Gospels.<ref name="Sebastian P. Brock 2016, pp. 7">Sebastian P. Brock, Two Hitherto Unattested Passages of the Old Syriac Gospels in Palimpsests from St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Δελτίο βιβλικῶν Μελετῶν 31, 2016, pp. 7–18.</ref>

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The Monastery also has a copy of the Ashtiname of Muhammad, in which the Islamic prophet Muhammad is claimed to have bestowed his protection upon the monastery.<ref>Brandie Ratliff, "The monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai and the Christian communities of the Caliphate." Sinaiticus. The bulletin of the Saint Catherine Foundation (2008) Template:Webarchive.</ref>

Additionally, the monastery houses a copy of Mok'c'evay K'art'lisay, a collection of supplementary books of the Kartlis Cxovreba, dating from the 9th century.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The most important manuscripts have since been filmed or digitized, and so are accessible to scholars. With planning assistance from Ligatus, a research center of the University of the Arts London, the library was extensively renovated, reopening at the end of 2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/>

Sinai Palimpsests ProjectEdit

Since 2011, a team of imaging scientists<ref>Keith Knox (Chief Science Advisor, EMEL, USA); Roger Easton (Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, Rochester, New York, USA); William Christens-Barry (Chief Scientist, Equipoise Imaging, LCC, Maryland, USA); David Kelbe (Centre for Space Science Technology, Alexandra, New Zealand)</ref><ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/> and experienced scholars in the decipherment of palimpsest manuscripts<ref>Zaza Aleksidze (Tbilisi, Georgia); André Binggeli (Paris, France); Sebastian Brock (Oxford, UK); Michelle Brown (London, UK); Guglielmo Cavallo (Rome, Italy); Steve Delamarter (Portland, Oregon, USA); Alain J. Desreumaux (Paris, France); David Ganz (Cambridge, UK); Paul Géhin (Paris, France); Jost Gippert (Frankfurt, Germany); Sidney Griffeth (Washington DC, USA); Getachew Haile (Minnesota; New York, USA); Dieter Harlfinger (Hamburg, Germany); Hikmat Kashouh (Metn, Lebanon); Vasilios Katsaros (Thessaloniki, Greece); Grigory Kessel (Vienna, Austria); Daniela Mairhofer (Princeton, New Jersey, USA); Heinz Miklas (Vienna, Austria); Christa Müller-Kessler (University of Jena, Germany); Panayotis Nicolopoulos (Athens, Greece); Pasquale Orsini (Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Central Institute for Archives, Italy); Bernard Outtier (Paris, France); Claudia Rapp (Vienna, Austria); Giulia Rossetto (Vienna, Austria); Alexander Treiger (Nova Scotia, Canada); Agammenon Tselikas (Athens, Greece); Nigel Wilson (Oxford, UK).</ref><ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/> from the U.S. and Europe have photographed, digitized, and studied the library's collection of palimpsests during the international Sinai palimpsests project.<ref>The project's original heads were the professor of Byzantine studies Claudia Rapp of the University of Vienna and Michael Phelps of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL), Los Angeles, California.</ref><ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5">Template:Cite news</ref>

Palimpsests are notable for having been reused one or more times over the centuries. Since parchment was expensive and time-consuming to produce, monks would erase certain texts with orange juice or scrape them off and write over them.<ref>Reviel Netz and William Noel (2008), The Archimedes Codex: Revealing the Secrets of the World's Greatest Palimpsest (London, UK: Phoenix), pp. 120–124.</ref><ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/> Though the original texts were once assumed to be lost,<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref> imaging scientists used narrowband multispectral imaging techniques and technologies to reveal features that were difficult to see with the human eye, including ink residues and small grooves in the parchment.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> These images have subsequently been digitized and are now freely available for research at the UCLA Library for scholarly use.<ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/>

As of June 2018, over 160 palimpsests have been identified, with over 6,800 pages of texts recovered.<ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/> The newer finds were discovered in a secluded storage area of the St George Tower in 1975.<ref>Ioannis E. Meïmaris (1985), Κατάλογος τῶν νέων ἀραβικῶν χειρογράφων τῆς ἱερᾶς Μονῆς Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης τοῦ Ὄρους Σινᾶ, Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Ἁγίας Αἰκατερίνης (Athens).</ref><ref>Ioannis C. Tarnanidis (1988), The Slavonic Manuscripts Discovered in 1975 at St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai (Thessaloniki).</ref><ref>Sebastian P. Brock (1995), Catalogue of the Syriac Fragments (New Finds) in the Library of the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai (Athens).</ref><ref>Panayotis G. Nicolopoulos (1999), The New Finds of Sinai. Holy Monastery and Archdiocese of Sinai (Athens).</ref><ref>Zaza Alekzidse, M. Shanidze, L. Khevsuriani, M. Kavtaria (2005), The New Finds of Sinai. Catalogue of Georgian Manuscripts Discovered in 1975 at Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai (Athens).</ref><ref>Philothee du Sinaï (2008), Nouveaux manuscrits syriaques du Sinaï (Athens).</ref> Highlights include "108 pages of previously unknown Greek poems and the oldest-known recipe attributed to the Greek physician Hippocrates;" additional folios for the transmission of the Old Syriac Gospels;<ref name="Sebastian P. Brock 2016, pp. 7"/> two unattested witnesses of an early Christian apocryphal text the Dormition of Mary (Transitus Mariae) of which most of the Greek text is lost;<ref>Christa Müller-Kessler, Three Early Witnesses of the «Dormition of Mary» in Christian Palestinian Aramaic. Palimpsests from the Cairo Genizah (Taylor-Schechter Collection) and the New Finds in St Catherine's Monastery, Apocrypha 29, 2018, pp. 69–95.</ref> a previously unknown martyrdom of Patriklos of Caesarea Maritima (Israel), one of the eleven followers of Pamphilus of Caesarea; some of the earliest known Georgian manuscripts;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as well as insight into dead languages such as the previously hardly attested Caucasian Albanian<ref>Zaza Alekzidse and Jean-Pierre Mahé, "Découverte d'un texte albanien: une langue ancienne du Caucase retrouvée", Comptes rendus des séances l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 141:2 (1997), pp. 512–532.</ref><ref>Zaza Aleksidze and Jean-Pierre Mahé, "Le déchiffrement de l'écriture des Albaniens du Caucase", Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 145:3 (2001), pp. 1239–1257.</ref> and Christian Palestinian Aramaic, the local dialect of the early Byzantine period, with many unparalleled text witnesses.<ref name="sinai.library.ucla"/>

Stainless Steel Boxing ProjectEdit

The Saint Catherine Foundation partnered with the Ligatus Research Centre at London’s University of the Arts to order the creation of steel boxes for the storage and transportation of rare manuscripts contained within the library at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai.<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The objective of the Saint Catherine Foundation is to house 2,187 parchment manuscripts in individual boxes made from stainless steel. These are determined to provide the best protection against the desert environment, natural disasters such as earthquakes, and erosion from age.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Stainless steel was recommended over wooden boxes due to the potential of acidic gasses being released inside a sealed box, damaging any pigments in the miniatures that are pH sensitive. Stainless steel boxes are resistant to insect attack while wooden boxes are not. Wood boxes to offer more insulation against heat penetration in case of a fire but are inflammable whereas stainless steel is not.<ref name=":6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Each case utilizes an oxygen starvation system allowing for greater protection against fire damage.<ref name=":1" />

Each box is created from a 304 grade stainless steel sheet, cut from an Amada guillotine, and formed by a CNC punch press. Corner seams are hand welded and polished with precision. The inside of each steel box is lined with a polyester foam called Plastazote. Each manuscript is wrapped in acid-free card stock and placed with its spine opposite to the side with the handle. Pressure of the weight of the book is bore by the spine should the box be carried by the handle.<ref name=":6" />

Works of artEdit

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 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.<ref>Kurt Weitzmann in The Icon, Evans Brothers Ltd., London (1982), pp. 201–207 (trans. of Le Icone, Montadori 1981), Template:ISBN</ref>

IconsEdit

Saint Peter-Sinai (6th Century).jpg

Saint Peter depicted in 6th-century hot wax icon
Encaustic Virgin.jpg

Icon of the enthroned Virgin and Child with saints and angels, 6th century
Spas vsederzhitel sinay.jpg

The oldest known icon of Christ Pantocrator, encaustic on panel
Last Judgement Sinai 12th century.jpg

The Last Judgement, 11th-12th century, by John Tokhabi
Crucifixion Icon Sinai 13th century.jpg

Crucifixion, 13th century
Holy Doors.jpg

Holy doors
Mary & Child Icon Sinai 13th century.jpg

Madonna and Child, 13th century
Mikharkhangel.jpg

13th century Byzantine icon of Saint Michael the Archangel
Transfiguration of Christ Icon Sinai 12th century.jpg

Transfiguration, 12th century
The Ladder of Divine Ascent Monastery of St Catherine Sinai 12th century.jpg

Ladder of Divine Ascent
John VIII Palaiologos, Sinai.jpg

Emperor John VIII Palaiologos
Icon of Saint Catherine.jpg

Icon of Saint Catherine of Alexandria
Icon Iakovos Moskos.jpg

The monastery, 18th century
Vethiy Denmi (Icons from Saint Catherine's Monastery).jpg

Christ as the Ancient of Days, 7th century
Icon of St. George and a Bagratid Georgian king. Sinai, Monastery of Saint Catherine..jpg

12th century icon of Saint George and David IV of Georgia

Historical imagesEdit

Saint Catherine's Monastery, Carsten Niebuhr, 1762.jpg

Carsten Niebuhr (1762)
Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai- drawing from the Description de l'Égypte (1809).jpeg

Description de l'Égypte (1809)
David Roberts - Convent of St. Catherine with Mount Horeb - 1927.90 - Cleveland Museum of Art.jpg

David Roberts (1839), published in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia
Die Gartenlaube (1861) b 060.jpg

Ernst Keil (1861)
Adolf Von Meckel - The Saint Catherine Monastery in Sinai.jpg

Adolf Meckel von Hemsbach (1892)

Panoramic viewEdit

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In literatureEdit

The French novelist Pierre Loti describes the monastery and its treasures extensively in Le désert, his 1895 account of a journey on camelback through the Sinai desert. <ref>Template:Cite book</ref>