| There are
moments in Sinai when one feels as if the history of all the world can be
read in its stones. Indeed, the land here is a monument to the antiquity of
life on Earth, from the fossilized reef animals of
Ras Mohammed
to the mines of El Maghara, whose copper fueled the Bronze Age. In many
places visitors from thousands of years ago literally recorded their passage
in stone, as at the Rock of Inscriptions near
Dahab.
And at
Serabit El-Khadem,
near ancient mining sites, archaeologists have discovered carvings that
record the very earliest emergence of our alphabet.
All three of the West's great religious
traditions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--know Sinai as a holy land, a
vast expanse traversed time and again by prophets, saints, pilgrims, and
warriors. Sinai is most familiar to many as the "great and terrible
wilderness" through which the Israelites wandered for forty years. However,
it was also the path by which Amr swept down into Egypt in 640 AD, bringing
Islam in his wake. Even after the muslim conquest, the monks of
St. Catherine Monastery
(founded in 547 AD) continued to greet
pilgrims to the site of the Burning Bush.
Many of the most memorable conquerors have
passed through Sinai as well. Alexander the Great crossed at the head of a
great army, as did Ramses II, Napoleon Bonaparte, and (in the opposite
direction) Salah el-Din. The Arab-Israeli conflicts of this century raged
across the Sinai as well, their passage still evident in the ghostly
wreckage that marks certain parts of the Suez coast.
In recent years, and for the first time,
the history of Sinai seems to be emerging as a story about the land
itself--its artifacts, its people, and its extraordinary natural
beauty--rather than the story of those who pass through that land. Today, it
is the Sinai's brilliant coral reefs, its striking mountains and deserts,
and its enormous
cultural heritage
that hold the future--once again, though in a very different way, the
history of Sinai seems to be written in the land itself.
HOME |
Click
here
for Sinai Timeline
Click
here
to listen to Bedouin music.
(Real Audio)
Download Realplayer
|
|
