Sinai
a mountain, or mountain range formed by the two arms of the Red Sea, and rendered memorable as the spot where, according to the Pentateuch, the law was given to Israel through Moses.
This mountain pass is divisible into three groups: a N. W., reaching, in Mount Serbal, an elevation of 6,340 feet; an E. and bal, an elevation of 6,340 feet; an E. and height of 8,160 feet; and a S. E., whose SINALOA highest peak, Um Shaumer, is the culminating point of the whole Sinaitic range. Serbal, with its five peaks, is the most magnificent mountain in the peninsula, and is identified with Sinai by the earlier Church fathers, fathers, Eusebius, Jerome, Cosmas, etc.; but it does not meet the requirements of the Hebrew narrative, and even as early as the time of Justinian the opinion that Serbal was the Sinai of Moses had been abandoned, and to a ridge of the second or E. range that honor had been transferred, the N. summit of which is termed Horeb; and the S. Jebel Mûsa, or Mount of Moses, continues to be regarded by the great majority of scholars as the true Sinai. Its height is variously estimated at from 6,800 to 7,100 feet above the sea. It is separated from the Jebel-ed-Deir on the W. by a narrow valley, called Er-Rahah, on one of the steps of which stands the famous convent of Mount Sinai, devoted to St. Catherine. In many of the western Sinaitic valleys the more accessible parts of the rocky sides are covered by thousands of inscriptions, usually short, and rudely carved in spots where travelers would naturally stop to rest at noon, frequently accompanied by a cross and mingled with representations of animals. The inscriptions are in unknown characters, but were at first ascribed to the ancient Israelites on their way from Egypt to Sinai, and afterward to Christian pilgrims of the 4th century. Recently, however, many of them have been deciphered by Professor Beer of Leipsic, who regards them as the only known remains of the language and characters once peculiar to valleys the Nabathæans of Arabia Petræa.