Description: ̉Sinai, the mt. On which, according to the Pentateuch, God announced to Moses the ten commandments and the other laws by which the Israelites were to be bound. Its exact position is matter of dispute among travelers, but it is sought for in the mass of granite and porphyry mts. occupying far the greater part of the Arabian peninsula, lying between the Gulfs of Suez and Akabah, and rising to a height of 8,000 or 9,000 ft. above the sea. This mountain-mass is divisible into three groups: a N. W., reaching, in Mount Serbal, an elevation of 6,340 ft.; an E. and central, attaining, in Jebel Katherin, a h. of 8,160 ft.; and a S. E., whose highest peak, Um Shaumer, is the culminating point of the whole Sinaitic range. Serbal is identified with S. by the earlier Church Fathers, Eusebius, Jerome, Cosmas, etc.; but as early as the time of Justinian, the opinion was abandoned, and to a ridge of the second or E. range that honor has been transferred, the N. summit of which is termed Horeb; and the S., Jebel-Musa, or Mount of Moses, continues to be regarded by the great majority of scholars as the true S. Its h. is estimated at from 6,800 to 7,100 ft. above the sea. — W. H. DePuy, 1881
Source: W.H. DePuy, People's Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge: V.2 (New York, NY: Phillips & Hunt, 1881) 1622
Map Credit: Courtesy the private collection of Roy Winkelman |
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