Mount Sinai


Mount Sinai, traditionally known as Jabal Musa, is a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt that is a possible location of the biblical Mount Sinai, the place where Moses receives the Ten Commandments.
It is a moderately high mountain near the city of Saint Catherine in the region known in modern times as the Sinai Peninsula. It is next to Mount Catherine. It is surrounded on all sides by higher peaks of the mountain range.

Geology

Mount Sinai's rocks were formed in the late stage of the Arabian-Nubian Shield's evolution. Mount Sinai displays a ring complex that consists of alkaline granites intruded into diverse rock types, including volcanics. The granites range in composition from syenogranite to alkali feldspar granite. The volcanic rocks are alkaline to peralkaline and they are represented by subaerial flows and eruptions and subvolcanic porphyry. Generally, the nature of the exposed rocks in Mount Sinai indicates that they originated from differing depths.

Religious significance

Immediately north of the mountain is the 6th century Saint Catherine's Monastery. The summit has a mosque that is still used by Muslims, and a Greek Orthodox chapel, constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th-century church, that is not open to the public. The chapel encloses the rock which is considered to be the source for the biblical Tablets of Stone. At the summit also is "Moses' cave", where Moses was said to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments.

Ascent and summit

There are two principal routes to the summit. The longer and shallower route, Siket El Bashait, takes about 2.5 hours on foot, though camels can be used. The steeper, more direct route is up the 3,750 "steps of penitence" in the ravine behind the monastery.