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| Title | Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, Vol. 2 |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Publisher | D. Appleton and Company |
| Date | 1883 |
| Description | Index: Phoenicia and Lebanon / by the Rev. H. W. Jessup -- The Phoenician plain / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- Acre, the key of Palestine, Mount Carmel and the river Kishon, Maritime cities and plains of Palestine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Lydda and Ramleh, Philistia / By Lt. Col. Warren -- The south country of Judaea / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- The southern borderland and Dead Sea / by Professor Palmer -- Mount Hor and the cliffs of Edom, The convent of St. Catherine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Sinai / by the Rev. C. P. Clarke -- The land of Goshen, Cairo, Memphis, Thebes, Edfu and Philae / by S. Lane-Poole. |
| Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Location | DS107 .W73 v.2 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b1703789~S11 |
| Digital Collection | Exotic Impressions: Views of Foreign Lands |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/exotic |
| Repository | Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/william-r-jenkins-architecture-art-library |
| Use and Reproduction | No Copyright - United States |
| Identifier | exotic_201304_015 |
| Title | Page 267 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | exotic_201304_015_290.jpg |
| Transcript | SINAI. 267 Sin, and then turns inland again to strike the Wady Feiran. We shall eventually take the lower route, but here branch off awhile to explore the wonders of the upper route. Wady Hamr is a broad valley with precipitous sides of limestone. The mountains on all sides abound in salt, and it is amazing to see how quickly the Arabs find and scoop out great lumps. Rough and coarse it is, but beautifully white. In front of us now rises the pyramidal peak of Sarbut el Jemel, naked, desolate, and seeming to bar all further progress. The sandstone district commences here, and we see the first specimens of those Sinaitic inscriptions with which one becomes so familiar on the sandstone rocks in Wady Mukatteb. Now these inscriptions are a most interesting study. Diodorus (b.c. 10), referring either to the palm-groves of Tor or to Feiran, says that " there is also an altar of solid stone very old, inscribed with unknown letters." About a.d. 518 Cosmas, the Indian traveller, visited the Sinaitic peninsula. He noticed that at all the halting places all the stones in that region which were broken off from the mountains were written with carved Hebrew characters, and these were explained to him by his Jewish companions " as written thus: ' the departure of such and such a man of such a tribe, in such a year, in such a month;' just as with us some people often write in inns." The mistake here made (Stanley points it out, but it would occur to any one) is that the writing is not ordinary Hebrew. The varying explanations of these inscriptions are—(1) that the greater part of the ancient inscriptions are in a dialect of Arabic, and are the greetings and names of Christian pilgrims; (2) that they are of earlier date, and are the work of Pagan pilgrims to a shrine on Mount Serbal; (3) that the characters are Egyptian, that the rude accompanying figures illustrate the characters and that they record the chief events of the Exodus, being of Israelite origin.—The wide district over which these inscriptions are spread must always be taken into account in any attempt to explain their origin and purport, as also the very different dates at which some of them were written. I can hardly think that those which almost cover the conspicuous rock, Hudheibat El Hajjaj, on the tableland above the valley of 'Ain Hudherah, are of the same date as those in Wady Mukatteb. Dean Stanley has given an account of the impressions which the inscriptions, from their position and variety, left on his mind—prepared as it was by acquaintance with the remarks of those ancient and modern writers who have written of them. Judging from the localities, he assigns many of them to pilgrims visiting sacred shrines, specially those in W&dy Leja, on the way to Jebel Katharina, and those in the Wady Aleyat leading up into Serbal, and those on the top of Serbal itself. In these valleys there is no thoroughfare, so that either the places themselves or some spot in near vicinity must have been the objects of the visit. In a general way one would say of the inscriptions, looking at their slight workmanship, that they were written by ordinary passers-by. Most of them are on sandstone, which, as every one knows, is very easily figured. Those which are on granite are faintly and imperfectly scratched. Very few are so out of reach that they might not have been written by an ordinarily venturesome climber to kill the time, say, whilst his caravan was preparing to start |