con«tructed ^ftei the Oidnance Sanej )
V, Liteiafuie. — Mount Smai and its vicinity have been visited by hundreds of travellers in modern times, and multitudes of descriptions have been written, few of which, however, contain anything specially new. The best accounts are those of Robinson, Bill. Res. i, 88-144 ;• Burckbardt, Tnirels in Syria,]). 541-590; Bihliuth. Sac. May, 1849, p. 381-38G; Stanley, Sin. and Pal. p. 3-77; I5eamoiit, Cairn to Sinai, p. 58-85; Sandie, Iloreb and ./entsalen), p. 154-224. The German writers — Ritter, /'((/. vnd Si/r. vol. i ; Riippell, Rnse ; Schubert, Reise, vol. ii ; and Niebulir, Description de I'A rabie — may be con- sulted with advantage; and fidl descriptions of the con- vent, with views, are given in Laborile's Mount Sinai and I'etra, and in Hartlett's Fu7ii/ JJai/s in the Desert. The vicinity is minutely described in Porters Hand- book for Palestine, and in Biideker's also. The residts of the English Ordnance Survey — which, however, only extended over the western half of tlic peninsula — have been published in three noble volumes with two supple- mentary series of photographs (Loud. 18(i8-G9), and a good abstract may be found in Palmer's Desert of the K.rodns (Lond. and N. Y. U^72), and more briefly in his Sinai from the Monuments (Lond. 1878).
Sinai Codex, IIicukkw. This iNIS., which con- tains the Pentateuch, contains many variations of the accents, as yiaW^I, and he heard (Exod. xviii, 1), has the accent Gershaim, but in Sinai it has Rebia ; again, iSTwH, the desert (ver. 5), has Zakeph, while in Sinai it has Zabph f/adol. As to the name of the codex, whether it is so called from the author or from tlie place where it was written is a matter of dispute. According to Levita it would be the name of a codex ; Filrst (jGesch,
SINAITIC INSCRIPTIONS
SINAITIC INSCRIPTIONS
der Kariier, i, 22, 138) thinks that this codex derives its name from Mount Sinai, while Joseph Eshoe, the expositor of the Masorah, says, on Exod. xviii, 1, "As to the remark Sinai has Kebia, know that the inventors of the vowel-points and accents were mostly from the spiritual heads and the sages of Tiberias. Now the name of one of these was Sinai, and he differed from the Masorah, which remarks that S'^SttJ^I has Gershaim, and said that it has the accent Rebia." From this it will be seen that this great Masoretic authorit}' does not take "'5^0 as Codex Sinaiticus, but regards it as a proper name of one of the inventors of the vowel-points and accents. Delitzsch (in his Hebrew translation of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, p. 41, 121) thinks that the name "^D^O ISO, Sinai Codex, refers rather to the place where it was written or found. See Strack, Pro- legomena Critica in Vet. Test, llehruicum (Lips. 1873), p. 23 sq. ; Levita, Massoreth ha-Mussoreth (ed. Giusburg), p. 259 ; Hottinger, Thes, Philolo(/icm (3d ed.), p. 107 ; Eichhorn, Einleitung in das alte Test, i, 375 ; Tychsen, Tentamen de Variis Codd. Hebr. p. 215. (B. P.)
Sinaitic Inscriptions is the name usually given to certain singular marks cut or rather scratched on the rocks of the Sinaitic peninsula, which have in all ages given rise to great curiosity and many queries. Dio- dorus Siculus states that in his time there was an oasis in the wilderness of Sinai containing a sacred shrine, to which the inhabitants of the surrounding country were accustomed to make pilgrimages every live years. There was a stone altar at the spot with an inscription in ancient unknown characters. This appears to be the first mention of the now famous Sinaitic inscriptions. The oasis was probably Feiniil, though some think it was the village of Tur, on the coast of the Red Sea. The quinquennial festival is mentioned by Strabo. But the first description of the inscriptions is given (about A.D. 535) by Cosmas, who supposed them to be the work of the Israelites. They are also referred to by several ear- ly travellers, as Neitzschitz and Monconys. Pococke and Niebuhr attempted to copy them, but with little success ; Seetzen and Burckhardt were more accurate in their transcripts. In the Transactions of the Rot/al So- ciety of Literature (1832, iii, 1), 177 of tiiem are careful- ly engraved ; nine of these are (Jreek, and one is Latin ; the rest are of that peculiar character which recent pa- liBographists, as Beer, have denominated Nabathrean. They are accompanied, wherever they occur, by rude figures of men with shields, swords, bows, and arrows ; of camels and horses, of goats and ibexes with horns wondrously exaggerated ; of antelopes pursued by grey- hounds; of lizards and tortoises, besides a number of nondescripts which will puzzle the zoologist. They are met with in almost every part of the mountainous re- gion of the peninsula, in groups and singh% They have been seen in wadies Sidrv, Magharah, and Feiran ; in wadies llumr and Birah, on the northern route to Sinai ; on and around Mount Serbal ; in Wady Leja at Sinai ; on the plateau between wadies Seyal and El-Ain, on the route to Akabah ; at Petra, and on the southern border of Palestine. They occur, however, in greatest num- bers in Wady Mokatteb.
The inscriptions are in general very short, consisting of one or two brief lines; the letters are from two to three inches long, rudely cut with a sharp-pointed instru- ment. The surface of the rock is generally soft, so that with a pocket-knife one could cut a shallow inscription in a few minutes. A few, however, are more deeply and regularly formed. Though Lepsius discovered some of the Sinaitic characters engraved over older Greek names, yet the Greek inscriptions are generally of a much more modern date than the others, judging from their appear- ance. Some of them have crosses attached ; but these are not in all cases of Christian origin. The very same figures are found on Egj'ptian obelisks. Their position on the face of the cliffs is generally so low that a man could reach them. Some are higher, and would require