A History of Sinai by Lina Eckenstein

Author:Lina Eckenstein [Eckenstein, Lina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, New Age, Religion & Spirituality, History, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781465605122
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2021-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

The MS. account discovered at Arezzo was incomplete. But the account, in its complete form, was apparently in the hands of Peter the Deacon when he compiled his little book On the Holy Places, about the year 1157, for Guidobaldo, abbot of Monte Cassino. In this book Peter cited passages found in the account that was discovered at Arezzo together with others which seem to be taken from the part of the work which is wanting. In the account which follows, the initial passages are quoted from the book of Peter on the assumption that they were taken from the account of Etheria.

Etheria and her party entered and left Sinai from Egypt.

“Before you reach the holy Mount Syna, stands the fort Clesma on the Red Sea which the Israelites passed dryshod. The marks (vestigia) of the chariot of the Pharaoh are visible in the ground to this day. But the wheels are farther apart than those of the chariots (currus) of our days as they are seen in the Roman empire, for between wheel and wheel is a space of twenty-four feet or more, and the wheelruts (orbitæ) are two feet wide. These marks of the Pharaoh’s chariot lead down to the shore where he entered the sea when he wanted to seize the Israelites. On the spot where the Pharaoh’s wheelruts are visible, two signs are set up, one on the right, and one on the left, like little columns (columella).[183]

Orosius (c. 400) in his History of the Universe, also mentioned the marks of the chariot wheels of the Pharaoh, which were still visible.[184] Cosmas Indicopleustes about the year 550 referred to them as “a sign to unbelievers.”[185] The consensus of opinion of these writers suggests the existence of some feature that attracted attention. The word Clysma itself signified beach or jetty. Perhaps the ruts were the marks made by the keels of the boats that were hauled in, in which case the little columns were perhaps the bollards on which the ropes were worked.

“Beyond the place of crossing lay the desert Shur and Mara with its two wells that were sweetened by Moses (probably the Ayun Musa). Three days’ journey lay Arandara, the place called Helim, where the river, in places, disappeared in the ground and where there was much herbage and many palm trees. From the crossing of the Red Sea near Sur there was no pleasanter place.” The description and the name Arandara point to the present Wadi Gharandel.

Etheria was bent on seeing all the sites, including the place where it rained manna, the cells with Hebrew writing, the desert of Pharan “where there were neither fields nor vineyards but water and palm trees,” the place Faran, where Amalek opposed the Israelites, the place where the Israelites called for water, and the place where Jethro met Moses, his son-in-law, “the spot where Moses prayed while Joshua fought Amalek, is a high, steep mountain above Pharan, and where Moses prayed there is now a church” (Petrus, ed. Geyer, p.

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