50 Fun Facts About Sinai Peninsula

The Sinai Peninsula is the only part of Egypt on which continent, reached by crossing the Suez Canal?

Asia claims Sinai, making Egypt a country that straddles two continents. The peninsula is a land bridge of about 60,000 square kilometres between the two.

According to the Bible, what did Moses receive from God on Mount Sinai, known in Arabic as Jabal Musa?

The Ten Commandments are why the peak draws pilgrims: Jabal Musa means 'Mountain of Moses', and many visitors climb through the night to watch sunrise from the top.

Christian tradition says angels carried what to the top of Mount Catherine, Egypt's highest mountain, in the Sinai?

A martyr's body, that of Catherine of Alexandria, was by legend set on the summit and later found by a monk. The peak stands taller than its famous neighbour, Mount Sinai.

Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai, lived in since the 6th century, encloses which plant from the Bible?

The burning bush seen by Moses is claimed to stand inside the walls. Built between 548 and 565, this is the world's oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery.

Ancient Egyptians called the Sinai Peninsula the 'Ladders of' which gemstone, mined there from the First Dynasty onward?

Turquoise drew Egyptian expeditions into Sinai for thousands of years, with miners working the deposits a season at a time at sites such as Wadi Maghareh.

Which Sinai Peninsula resort, nicknamed the 'City of Peace', hosted the COP27 climate conference in 2022?

Sharm El Sheikh earned the title from the many peace summits held there. It was a fishing village and naval base before the hotels arrived.

Israel captured the whole Sinai Peninsula from Egypt during which 1967 conflict, before returning it by 1982?

The Six-Day War saw Israeli forces hold all of Sinai by the fourth day. The Suez Canal on its western edge then stayed shut to shipping for eight years.

Which sea explorer found the wreck of SS Thistlegorm off the Sinai Peninsula in the 1950s, guided by local fishermen?

Jacques Cousteau raised a motorcycle, the captain's safe and the ship's bell from the wartime freighter, sunk by German bombers in 1941. It is now a celebrated dive site.

The Sinai baton blue, found only on mountain thyme near Saint Catherine in Egypt, is a tiny species of which insect?

Butterfly it is, and one of the world's smallest: the Sinai baton blue lays its eggs on a single plant, Sinai thyme, and lives nowhere else on Earth.

Egyptian engineers breached Israel's Bar Lev Line sand wall on Sinai's canal bank in 1973 using what?

Water cannons, made from hoses fixed to dredging pumps, washed gaps through a wall up to 25 metres high. Israeli planners had expected any breach to take at least a day.

Which nomadic desert people, including the Tarabin and Muzeina tribes, are the Sinai Peninsula's historic inhabitants?

Bedouin tribes long had the desert largely to themselves. Large numbers of Egyptians from the Nile Valley and Delta later moved in to work in tourism.

The 1978 accords that led Israel to leave the Sinai Peninsula were negotiated at which American presidential retreat?

Camp David hosted twelve days of secret talks in the Maryland hills, and the two leaders who negotiated there shared that year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Which Egyptian president won back the Sinai Peninsula by signing a 1979 peace treaty with Israel in Washington?

Anwar Sadat had stunned the region by visiting Jerusalem in 1977; the treaty followed 16 months later. Egypt was suspended from the Arab League for a decade over it.

Which Sinai town on the Gulf of Aqaba, called the diving capital of South Sinai, is the gateway to the Blue Hole?

Dahab lies a few kilometres south of the Blue Hole, a sinkhole just over 100 metres deep. Its sunken tunnel, the Arch, is an extreme dive that has claimed many lives.

Which giant container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal beside Sinai in March 2021, blocking world trade for days?

Ever Given, almost 400 metres long, wedged itself across the channel and held up shipping until salvage crews freed it nearly a week later.

Which French diplomat founded the company that dug the Suez Canal, the channel dividing Sinai from the rest of Egypt?

Ferdinand de Lesseps won the concession through his friendship with Egypt's ruler Sa'id Pasha. His later attempt at a sea-level canal in Panama collapsed amid disease and debt.

The Gulf of Aqaba, east of the Sinai Peninsula, has shores in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and which fourth country?

Jordan has just 26 kilometres of coast here, its only outlet to the sea. Car ferries cross to its port from Nuweiba on the Sinai shore.

After Israel left Sinai in 1957, which organisation's Emergency Force was stationed there to keep the peace?

The United Nations sent UNEF, its first military force of the kind, which grew to 6,000 troops. Egypt ordered the peacekeepers out in May 1967, weeks before fighting resumed.

Which shape does the Sinai Peninsula form on a map, between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba?

A triangle, with the Mediterranean along its top edge and a gulf running down each side to the southern tip at Ras Muhammad.

In the Book of Exodus, which idol did the Israelites make while Moses was away on Mount Sinai?

A golden calf was cast by Aaron from the people's earrings and ornaments, after they feared Moses would never come back down the mountain.

Which Byzantine emperor ordered Saint Catherine's Monastery built at the foot of Mount Sinai in the 6th century?

Justinian I wrapped the new monastery around an older chapel, one that had been ordered by Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine.

Although it stands in Egypt, Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai belongs to which branch of Christianity?

Greek Orthodox monks run it through the self-governing Church of Sinai, whose archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Which unexpected building, converted from a chapel in Fatimid times, stands inside Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai?

A mosque has stood within the walls for some nine centuries and is still used on special occasions, one reason the site is honoured by three faiths.

Stalin's government sold the Codex Sinaiticus, a Bible from Saint Catherine's Monastery, to which institution in 1933?

The British Museum paid £100,000, raised by public subscription. The 4th-century manuscript holds the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.

The hoard of early manuscripts at Saint Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai is outnumbered only by which collection?

The Vatican Library alone holds more early codices. Sinai's own, founded in the 6th century, is recognised by Guinness as the world's oldest continuously operating library.

The Multinational Force and Observers, which monitors the Sinai peace, is run from headquarters in which European city?

Rome hosts the director-general, while the troops are based in Sinai itself. The force was created in 1981 as a stand-alone organisation, after a threatened Soviet veto blocked the usual peacekeeping route.

Which country paid for most of the Suez Canal Bridge, opened in 2001 to link mainland Egypt with the Sinai Peninsula?

Japan covered 60 percent of the cost, and the crossing is also called the Japan-Egypt Friendship Bridge. Its two towers are shaped like Pharaonic obelisks.

Lake Bardawil, a salty lagoon on the Sinai Peninsula's north coast, is named after which Crusader king of Jerusalem?

Baldwin I fell ill on a raid into Egypt in 1118 and died on the Sinai coast while being carried back to Jerusalem.

Ras Muhammad, the marine park at the Sinai Peninsula's southern tip, is said to be named for a cliff resembling what?

A bearded face in profile is the usual story: 'Ras' is Arabic for head, and bands of hard rock form the nose and chin of the cliff.

The medieval fortress on Pharaoh's Island, just off Sinai in the Gulf of Aqaba, officially carries which sultan's name?

Saladin gives his name to the citadel, though some historians doubt he actually fortified the island. Despite its other name, Coral Island, the rock is solid granite.

Which Egyptian goddess had a temple at Serabit el-Khadim, where she was honoured as protector of Sinai's miners?

Hathor was thought to guide the royal mining expeditions. Her temple was founded under Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and partly rebuilt in the New Kingdom.

Inscriptions found at the ancient mines of Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai are among the earliest known examples of what?

An alphabet: the Proto-Sinaitic signs, adapted from hieroglyphs, are the ancestor of Phoenician script and, through it, of the Latin letters you are reading now.

Which Mediterranean city, the largest on the Sinai Peninsula, was once called Rhinocorura, meaning 'Cut-off Noses'?

Arish, now the capital of North Sinai, was a place of banishment for criminals under the Ptolemies, which may explain the grim old name.

Which Sinai border town on the Gulf of Aqaba was the last land Israel returned to Egypt, in 1989 after arbitration?

Taba was the sticking point because Israel argued that old boundary pillars had been misplaced. The panel disagreed, and Hosni Mubarak raised Egypt's flag there in March 1989.

Which capital of South Sinai gave its name to a cholera strain first identified at its pilgrim quarantine station?

El Tor was where Muslim pilgrims returning from the Hajj were held in quarantine, and the strain that bears its name was discovered there in 1905.

Egypt's closure of which sea passage at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba helped trigger two wars with Israel?

The Straits of Tiran, only five or six kilometres wide beside Sinai, carried 90 percent of Israel's oil in 1967, so its leaders called closing them an act of war.

Cargo ships trapped in the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975, on the edge of Sinai, earned which nickname?

The Yellow Fleet took its name from the desert sand that coated the hulls. To pass eight years at anchor, the crews made their own postage stamps and held an Olympic Games.

Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula in 1956 alongside which two European powers seeking control of the Suez Canal?

Britain and France wanted to reverse Nasser's takeover of the canal. Pressure from Washington and Moscow forced all three invaders out; Egyptians call it the Tripartite Aggression.

One theory links the name 'Sinai' to Sin, an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with which heavenly object?

The moon was the domain of Sin, whose great temples stood far away at Ur and Harran. The origin of the peninsula's name is still disputed.

Which empire took the Sinai Peninsula along with the rest of Egypt in 1517, under Sultan Selim the Grim?

The Ottomans defeated Egypt's Mamluk rulers in two battles. In 1906 a boundary was drawn in an almost straight line from Rafah to the Gulf of Aqaba, and it still stands.

Which animal can carry visitors up Mount Sinai on the longer, gentler path from Saint Catherine's Monastery?

Camel rides cover the longer, shallower trail, which takes about two and a half hours on foot. Most climbers set off after midnight to reach the summit for sunrise.

In the Bible, how many years did the Israelites who halted at Mount Sinai spend in the wilderness in all?

40 years was the penalty after the people lost their nerve on the border of Canaan. In the story, only Joshua and Caleb of that generation were allowed to enter.

Why is the Sinai Peninsula one of the coldest parts of Egypt, with winter nights that can fall well below freezing?

Its altitude is the reason: much of the south is mountainous, and snow sometimes dusts the summit of Mount Catherine.

Which mountain name, used in Deuteronomy, do most scholars think refers to the same place as Mount Sinai?

Horeb is thought to mean a dry or glowing place. Near Saint Catherine's Monastery, local tradition gives the name to a separate summit, Willow Peak.

Which Persian king crossed the Sinai desert, long Egypt's first line of defence, and beat the Egyptians at Pelusium?

Cambyses II defeated Pharaoh Psamtik III, who fell back to Memphis and was later carried off as a captive to Susa in Persia.

Egypt's 1973 assault across the Suez Canal into Sinai was codenamed after which early Muslim victory, won in Ramadan?

Badr, fought in 624, was the Muslims' first victory. Egyptian commanders chose it over the plan's working title, the High Minarets, as more inspiring.

The ancient road across northern Sinai from the fortress of Tjaru to Canaan was called the Way of which Egyptian god?

Horus gave his name to the route; the fortress of Tjaru at its western end doubled as a place of exile for Egyptian criminals.

The Ashtiname, a charter promising protection to Saint Catherine's Monastery, is sealed with an imprint of what?

A hand, said to be Muhammad's own, marks the document. The monks say the original was carried off by conquering soldiers in 1517 and a copy made to replace it.

The steep route up Mount Sinai, which climbs the ravine behind Saint Catherine's Monastery, is known by which name?

Steps of Penitence is the name for the 3,750 stairs that climb the ravine. At the top stands a chapel built in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th-century church.

Which two heavy machines were blown off the deck of SS Thistlegorm when bombers sank it off Sinai in 1941?

Steam locomotives, bound for Egypt's railways as deck cargo, now lie on the seabed either side of the wreck. Trucks and motorcycles are still stacked in the holds.