page_title: Saint Catherine, Egypt
section_title: Places of interest
hierarchical_section_title: Saint Catherine, Egypt / Places of interest
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Ветхий денми. Икона VII в. (Мон-рь вмц. Екатерины на Синае)
context_page_description: Saint Catherine is a city in the South Sinai Governorate. It is located at the outskirts of the El Tur Mountains at an elevation of 1,586 m, 120 km away from Nuweiba, at the foot of Mount Sinai and Saint Catherine's Monastery. In 1994, its population was 4,603. Saint Catherine is a UNESCO world heritage site, officially declared in 2002.
context_section_description: While the main tourist attractions are Saint Catherine's Monastery and Mount Sinai, there are other popular places of interest in the area.
  One of the prime historical attractions in the area is the palace of Abbas I, the Wali and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan between 1849 and 1854. The palace was built on a mountain at the time called Jebel Tinya, but later named after him and today called Jebel Abbas Basha. The palace has never been finished as he died before it was completed, but the massive 2-metre-thick (6.6 ft) walls made of granite blocks and granite-sand bricks still stand firmly. The open quarry on the top of Jebel Somra, just opposite Jebel Abbas Basha, is still visible with many huge blocks lying around. Other blocks were cut from Wadi Zawatin, at the beginning of the ascent to the palace. The bricks were made on site while the mortar, made of lime and water, was burnt in kilns in the surrounding valleys. To be able to carry out the work, first a road accessible to camels and donkeys was built in order to transport the supplies. The road, starting at Abu Jeefa and going through Wadi Tubuq and Wadi Zawatin, is still in use today.
  Son and successor of the great reformist Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805–1848), Abbas Pasha was in many ways the opposite. He had "a lasting distrust of foreigners [and] strongly opposed many of the Western inspired change introduced by his father Mohammed Ali Pasha and he is remembered as a traditionalist and reactionary who undid many of his grandfather's modernising reforms. His secretive and suspicious nature led to much speculation over his death; it is uncertain whether he was murdered or died of a stroke."
  Abbas Pasha suffered from tuberculosis, so one of the reasons he wanted to build his palace in the high mountains was for medical reasons. On the other hand, he liked a secluded lifestyle and had other remote palaces. According to traditions he selected the place after placing meat on the top of Mount Sinai, Mount Catherine and Mount Tinya, and it was here at the former that the meat decayed later, suggesting a better environment and cleaner air. Another account recalls that this story was actually made up by the monks to keep him away from the holy peaks. In any case, his selection would have been just as good with magnificent views from the palace over the Sinai mountain range.
  Although Abbas is "best remembered for the emancipation of the fellaheen and the construction of the Cairo-Alexandria railway line in 1851", he "had a significant influence on the immediate area around St Katherine. Besides the construction of the mountain-top palace he commissioned the building of the camel path up to Mount Sinai and the Askar barracks on the way to the monastery, which now lies in ruins."
  There are hundreds of ruins of Byzantine monasteries, churches and monastic settlements in the area, some of them not much more than a pile of rocks, and others difficult to distinguish from Bedouin buildings, but there are several very well-preserved ones. Many can be found in the wide and open Bustan el Birka area, approachable from the settlements of Abu Seila and Abu Zaituna, including churches, houses on hills overlooking gardens in the wadi floor, buildings in clusters and hermit cells under rocks. They are among the best preserved ones and they can be easily reached from the village.
  There is a graceful little church in very good shape in Wadi Shrayj, passing other somewhat more ruined Byzantine buildings. Further up from the church there are more ruins, some dating back to the Nabataean era (c. 300 BC – AD 100).
  In Wadi Mathar (Wadi Shaq) there is a hermit cell under a huge boulder, and the remains of the monks who died in there centuries ago are still in the walled-up chamber. Further up is a well-preserved monastic settlement with houses and a round building which might have been a storage room.
  Byzantine Nawamis, circular prehistoric stone tombs, are found at many locations, such as at the beginning of Wadi Jebal or in Wadi Mathar. Halfway in Wadi Jebal there is a Roman well, and fur
caption: Vethiy Denmi (Icons from Saint Catherine's Monastery)
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