|
******************************************
Dahab
The gulf
actually consists of two
villages, the Bedouin village of Assalah is the southern
half, with the business and administrative center of
Dahab to the north. There are also
clusters of holiday villages that cater to affluent
visitors.
Assalah is the
most developed part of Dahab, 2,5 miles up the coat from
downtown. Historically, most visitors to Dahab have been
backpackers traveling independently and staying in the
hostels in this area. It is a sprawling conglomeration
of palm trees, shops, campgrounds, hotels, bars and
restaurants that lie along the shore of Ghazala Bay.
Assalah has a distinctly bohemian feel. Less laid back,
but still relaxed, is the area just south along El-Qura
Bay. Here, upscale luxury holiday villages and dive
centers attract a very
different clientele.
Dahab means
'gold' in Arabic. In Sinai it means golden sands,
turquoise sea and off-beat cafe life. It is a focus of
tourism development, with swaying palms, fine sand and
wonderful snorkeling opportunities. Dahab has excellent
hotel accommodations, but also affords less expensive
housing in the village, or camping. About 5 miles from
town is the famous Blue Hole, for diving. Towards the
Israeli border is the Island of Coral, where the
Crusaders built a fort. The remains can still be seen.
Dahab was
originally a Bedouin fishing village that today is
world-renowned for its windsurfing, because of the
reliable winds that provide outstanding flat water
conditions. However, there are many reefs immediately
adjacent to the waterfront hotels, so scuba diving and
snorkeling are also very popular sports, especially
considering the nearby Blue Hole.
One
of the main attractions of Dahab are the unique
on-the-ground restaurants, a mixture of Hippie and
Bedouin styles developed over several decades. Large
cushions and low tables are placed next to the sea, and
decorated with colorful cloths. Most of these
restaurants have fish stalls in front, where one can
pick the fish of one's choice and have it prepared
according to one's wishes. The menus are delicious,
quite affordable, but a bit above the price level of the
average Egyptian restaurant. After finishing one's food,
one just lean back in the cushions and rest for as long
as you wish.
******************************************
Suez Canal
There seems to have always been an
interest in linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas,
because such a link would greatly shorten the time
required for trade goods that would otherwise require a
considerably longer sea voyage or shipment overland.
Most of the early efforts were directed towards a link
from the
Nile to the Red Sea,
thus indirectly linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean
through the Nile. Strabo and Pliny record that the
earliest effort was directed by
Senusret III, but no evidence
that there was an actual canal built exists. The
earliest efforts may have actually occurred at the
command of
Seti I or
Ramesses II during the 13th
century BC.
According to the Chronicle of the
Pharaohs by Peter A. Clayton, under
Necho II (610-595 BC) a
canal was built between the Pelusian branch of the
Nile and the northern end of
the Bitter Lakes (which lies between the two seas) at a
cost of, reportedly, 100,000 lives. However, over many
years, the canal fell into disrepair, only to be
extended, abandoned, and rebuilt again. After having
been neglected, it was rebuilt by the Persian ruler,
Darius I (522-486 BC), whose
canal can still be seen along the Wadi Tumilat.
According to Herootus, his canal was wide enough that
two triremes could pass each other with oars extended,
and that it took four days to navigate. He commemorated
the completion of his canal with a series of granite stelae set up along the Nile bank.
This canal is said to have been
extended to the Red Sea by
Ptolemy II Philadelphus
(285-246 BC), abandoned during the early Roman rule, but
rebuilt again by Trajan (98-117 AD). Over the next
several centuries, it once again was abandoned and
sometimes dredged by various rulers for various but
limited purposes. Amr Ibn el-As rebuilt the canal after
the Islamic takeover of Egypt creating a new supply line
from
Cairo, but
in 767 AD, the Abbasid caliph El-Mansur closed the canal
a final time to cut off supplies to insurgents located
in the Delta. Of course, over time, ships grew in size
and so the ancient attempts to connect the two seas
would not have worked anyway today.
The first efforts to build
a modern canal came from the Egypt expedition of
Napoleon Bonaparte, who hoped the project would create a
devastating trade problem for the English. Though this
project was begun in 1799 by Charles Le Pere, a
miscalculation estimated that the levels between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea were too great
(estimating that the Red Sea was some ten meters higher
than that of the Mediterranean Sea) and work was quickly
suspended.
Then, in 1833, a group of French
intellectuals known as the Saint-Simoniens arrived in
Cairo and they became
very interested in the Suez project despite such
problems as the difference in sea levels. Unfortunately,
at that time
Mohammed Ali had little
interest in the project, and in 1835, the Saint-Simoniens
were devastated by a plague epidemic. Most of the twenty
or so engineers returned to France. They did leave
behind several enthusiasts for the canal, including
Ferdinand de Lesseps (who was then the French
vice-consul in Alexandria) and Linant de Bellefonds
In Paris, the Saint-Simoniens
created an association in 1846 to study the possibility
of the Suez Canal once again. In 1847, Bourdaloue
confirmed that there was no real difference in the
levels between the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and it
was Linant de Bellefonds that drew up the technical
report. Unfortunately, there was considerable British
opposition to the project, and Mohammed Ali, who was ill
by this time, was less than enthusiastic.
However, Pasha Said was
very open to European influence, and in fact, was a
childhood friend of Vicomte Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps,
who ended up founding the La Campagnie Universelle du
Canal Maritime de Suez (Universal
Company of the Maritime Suez Canal) in 1858 to build the
canal. This was a private company, which would build the
canal under an agreement allowing it to operate the
canal for 99 years, after which it would revert to
Egyptian government ownership.
The pilot study estimated
that a total of 2,613 million cubic feet of earth would
have to be moved, including 600 million on land, and
another 2,013 million dredged from water. The total
original cost estimate was two hundred million francs.
When at first the company ran into
financial problems, it was Pasha Said who
purchased 44 percent of the company to keep it in
operation. However, the British and Turks were concerned
with the venture and managed to have work suspended for
a short time, until the intervention of Napoleon III.
Excavation of the canal actually began on April 25th,
1859, and between then and 1862, the first part of the
canal was completed. However, after Ismail succeeded
Pasha Said in 1863, the work was again suspended. After
Ferdinand De Lesseps again appealed to Napoleon III, an
international commission was formed in March of 1864.
The commission resolved the problems and within three
years, the canal was completed. On November 17, 1869
the barrage of the Suez plains reservoir was breached
and waters of the Mediterranean flowed into the Red Sea.
The total original cost of
building the canal was about $100 million, about twice
its original estimated coast. However, about three times
that sum was spent on later repairs and improvements.
The completion of the Suez Canal
was a cause for considerable celebration. In
Port Said, the
extravaganza began with fireworks and a ball attended by
six thousand people. They included many heads of state,
including the Empress Eugenie, the Emperor of Austria,
the Prince of Wales, the Prince of Prussia and the
Prince of the Netherlands. Two convoys of ships entered
the canal from its southern and northern points and met
at Ismailia. Parties continued for weeks, and the
celebration also marked the opening of Ismail's old
Opera House in
Cairo, which is now gone.
The canal had a dramatic
effect on world trade almost from the time it was
opened, and even on world politics. Now, it was much
easier for European nations to penetrate and colonize
Africa.
Because of external debts,
the British government purchased the shares owned by
Egyptian interests, namely those of Said Pasha, in 1875,
for some 400,000 pounds sterling. Yet France continued
to have a majority interest. Under the terms of an
international convention signed in 1888 (The Convention
of Constantinople), the canal was opened to vessels of
all nations without discrimination, in peace and war.
Nevertheless, Britain considered the canal vital to the
maintenance of its maritime power and colonial
interests. Therefore, the provisions of the
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 allowed Britain to
maintain a defensive force along the Suez Canal Zone.
However, Egyptian nationalists demanded repeatedly that
Britain evacuate the Suez Canal Zone, and in 1954 the
two countries signed a seven-year agreement that
superseded the 1936 treaty and provided for the gradual
withdrawal of all British troops from the zone.
By June 1956, all British
troops had departed and Egypt took over the British
installations. Nevertheless, various conflicts caused
the closure of the canal for intermittent periods.
Unfortunately, between the Suez Crisis and later wars,
the canal was damaged extensively and was not operated
for several year after 1967. However, on June 5th,
1975, the canal was again opened, and since then has
been updated and enlarged.
The canal stretches over 100 miles
(163 kilometers) from
Port Said and the
Mediterranean Sea to
Suez and the Red Sea and,
along with other such projects, changed the face of
maritime world trade. The famous canal (Translated from
Arabic as Qana al-Suways) of the modern era is one of
the greatest engineering feats of modern record. At its
narrowest point, it is about 300 meters wide (197 feet)
at the bottom. It is wide enough to allow ships having a
a maximum draft of 16 meters (53 feet). The canal can
accommodate ships as large as 150,000 dead weight tons
fully loaded.
The Canal is really not wide
enough to allow two way passage of ships, but there are
several passing bays, and areas where ships may pass
each other in the Bitter Lakes and between Qantara and
Ismailia. There is also
a railway that runs the entire distance of the canal.
The Suez Canal has no locks,
because the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Suez have
roughly the same water level. Actually, the canal does
not stretch continuously from one sea to the other. It
really consists of two parts each flowing into the
Bitter Lakes which lies between
Port Said and
Suez, and it also uses the
waters of Lake Manzilah and Lake Timsah.
Three convoys transit the
canal on a typical day, two southbound and one
northbound. The first southbound convoy enters the canal
in the early morning hours and proceeds to the Great
Bitter Lake, where the ships anchor out of the fairway
and await the passage of the northbound convoy. The
northbound convoy passes the second southbound convoy,
which moors to the canal bank in a by-pass, in the
vicinity of El Qantara. Egypt's Suez Canal Authority (SCA)
reported that in 2003 17,224 ships passed through the
canal. The canal averages about 8% of the world shipping
traffic. The passage takes between 11 and 16 hours at a
speed of around 8 knots. The low speed helps prevent
erosion of the canal banks by ship's wakes.
Improvements are planned to
allow supertanker passage though the canal by 2010.
Presently, supertankers can offload part of their cargo
onto a canal-owned boat and
reload at the other end of the canal.
For tourists, the Canal Zone makes
an interesting visit, though one need not, and really
cannot traverse the whole of it except by ship. Outside
of an ocean cruise, visiting the Canal is easiest at
Suez. It can in fact be
a very easy day tour, as
Cairo is only about an hour
and a half away. On the other hand, it could also be
visited as part of a little longer tour, also taking in
the Eastern Desert Monasteries and some other site
seeing.
******************************************
Taba
There are a number of forts
in Egypt. The most famous of these is the
Citadel in
Cairo, but also notable is
Fort Qaitbey in
Alexandria, built on the
location of the legendary Pharos Lighthouse. Probably
the least known of the major forts is located on
Pharaoh's Island in the Gulf of Aqba. This fortress
would undoubtedly draw much larger crowds of tourists
were it located in a more mainstream tourist
destination, but tourists who make an effort to visit
the fort will usually have the island mostly to
themselves.
Pharaoh's Island, sometimes called
Coral Island, or Geziret Faraum, is the location of a
Crusader fortress originally built by Baldwin I, the
King of Jerusalem. From the top of the fortress, one
can see four countries, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan
and Saudi Arabia. Work apparently began on the fortress
around 1116 AD. Baldwin built the Fortress for three
reasons:
It was in the center of a huge
trade route between the far East and Europe.
It was easily defendable, being
out of range of land based catapults and was on high
ground.
It was in the narrowest section of
the Gulf of Aqaba.
The castle was originally named
Ile De Graye Castle. At various times while in Crusader
hands, it was used to collect taxes on Arab merchants,
and sometimes to attack Arab shipping, while at the same
time protecting pilgrims traveling between Jerusalem and
St. Catherine's Monastery. The
fortification was, however, captured by Salah ad-Din in
about 1170. Some reports indicate that he abandoned the
fortress only a short time later, in about 1183, while
other information seems to indicate that he expanded the
fortress considerably and that it was possibly not
abandoned until the 13th century. He did in fact
probably expand the fortress considerably, and the
Mamelukes and Ottomans probably further enhanced it.
The fortress, which is completely
renovated, has many small rooms some with arched
doorways and other without. These rooms included
sleeping quarters for the troops, bath houses and
kitchens with huge ovens . There are towers to house
carrier pigeons, which were used for relaying messages
in the Middle Ages and and circular towers for
archers. Most of the business end of the fortress is on
the eastern side, as the water was two restricted for
attacks to have occurred on the mainland side.
It is also notable that Lawrence
of Arabia made a somewhat daring and unauthorized visit
to the Island during his Wilderness of Zin survey in
June 1914. However, little else of the Fortress history
is known. Obviously at least one important battle took
place there, when Salah ad-Din took the Fortress from
the Crusaders, but beyond that we really here of no
major battles involving the fort. Some biblical scholars
believe that the island was the biblical port of
Etzion-Gaver.
******************************************
Mount
Sinai
primary sacred mountains: Mt
Ararat in eastern Turkey, the traditional landing place
of Noah's ark;
Mount
Sinai in the
Sinai peninsula,
the peak where Moses received the Ten Commandments;
Mount Moriah or Mount Zion in Israel, where lies the
city of Jerusalem and the temple of Solomon; and Mt.
Tabor in Israel, the site of the transfiguration of
Jesus. Mount Sinai, also called Mount Horeb and Jebel
Musa (the ‘Mountain of Moses’) is the center of a
greatly venerated pilgrimage destination that includes
the
Monastery of St. Catherine and the Burning Bush,
Elijah’s Plateau, and Plain of ar-Raaha, near Mount
Sinai.
The
Monastery of St. Catherine, also known as the
Monastery of the Transfiguration, is located in a
triangular area between the Desert of El-Tih, the Gulf
of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba in the
Sinai. It
is situated at an altitude of 4854 feet in a small,
picturesque gorge. It is a region of wilderness made up
of granite rock and rugged mountains which, at first
glance, seems inaccessible. In fact, while small towns
and villages have grown up on the shores of the two
gulfs, only a few Bedouin nomads roam the mountains and
arid land inland. Well known mountains dominate this
region, including
Mount
Sinai (2,285 meters), Mount St.  Catherine
(2,637 meters), Mount Serbal (2,070 meters) and Mount
Episteme.
This is the region through which
Moses is said to have led his people, eventually to the
Promised Land, and there are legends of their passing in
many places. Of course, one of the most exceptional
locations is that of
Mount
Sinai, where Moses met with God who delivered to him
the tablets containing the Ten Commandments. Obviously,
the region is sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims
alike.
While grazing his flocks on the
side of Mt. Horeb, Moses came upon a burning bush that
was, miraculously, unconsumed by its own flames. A voice
speaking out of the fire (Exodus 3:1-13) commanded him
to lead his people out of bondage in Egypt and return
with them to the  mountain.
Upon his return Moses twice climbed the mountain to
commune with God. Regarding the second ascent, Exodus
24: 16-18 states: And the glory of the Lord abode upon
Mount
Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and the
seventh day God called unto Moses out of the midst of
the cloud. And the appearance of the glory of the Lord
was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the
eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses entered into
the midst of the cloud, and went up into the mount; and
Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
During this time on the mountain Moses received two
tablets upon which God had inscribed the Ten
Commandments, as well as precise dimensions for the Arc
of the Covenant, a portable box-like shrine that would
contain the tablets. Soon thereafter, the Arc of the
Covenant was constructed and Moses and his people
departed from Mount Sinai.
The Arc of the Covenant and its
supposedly divine contents are one of the great
mysteries of antiquity. According to archaic textual
sources the Arc was a wooden chest measuring three feet  nine
inches long by two feet three inches high and wide. It
was lined inside and out with pure gold and was
surmounted by two winged figures of cherubim that faced
each other across its heavy gold lid. Some scholars
believe that the Arc may have contained, in addition to
the Tablets of the Law, pieces of meteorites and highly
radioactive rocks. In the ensuing two hundred and fifty
years, between the time it was taken from
Mount
Sinai to when it was finally installed in the temple
in Jerusalem, the Arc was kept for two centuries at
Shiloh, was captured by the Philistines for seven
months, and then, returned to the Israelites, it was
kept in the village of Kiriath-Jearim. During this
entire time it was associated with numerous
extraordinary phenomena, many of which involved the
killing or burning of often large numbers of people.
Passages in the Old Testament give the impression that
these happenings were divine actions of Yahweh, the god
of the Hebrews. Contemporary scholars, however, believe
that there may be another explanation.
Some have suggests that the Arc,
and more precisely its mysterious contents, may have
been a product of ancient Egyptian magic, science and
technology. Moses, being highly trained by the Egyptian
priesthood, was certainly knowledgeable in these matters
and thus the astonishing powers of the Arc and its
'Tablets of the Law' may have derived from archaic
Egyptian magic rather than the mythical god Yahweh.
However, it should be noted that this comes from an
alternative school of thought.
 On
the peak of Jebel Musa stands a small chapel dedicated
to the Holy Trinity. This chapel, constructed in 1934 on
the ruins of a 16th century church, is believed to
enclose the rock from which God made the Tablets of the
Law. In the western wall of this chapel is a cleft in
the rock where Moses is said to have hidden himself as
God’s glory passed by (Exodus 33:22). Seven hundred and
fifty steps below the summit and its chapel is the
plateau known as Elijah’s Basin, where Elijah spent 40
days and nights communing with God in a cave. Nearby is
a rock on which Aaron, the brother of Moses, and 70
elders stood while Moses received the law (Exodus
24:14). Northwest of Elijah’s plateau hardy pilgrims
visit Jebel Safsaafa, where Byzantine hermits such as
St. Gregory lived and prayed. Beneath the 2168 meter
summit of Ras Safsaafa stands the Plain of ar-Raaha,
where camped the Israelites at the time Moses ascended
the mountain and where Moses erected the first
tabernacle.
 Currently
there is no archaeological evidence that the granite
peak of Jebel Musa
Mount
Sinai on the
Sinai
Peninsula is the actual Mount Sinai of the Old Testament
and various scholars, such as Emmanuel Anati, writing in
his comprehensive study, The Mountain of God, have
proposed several alternative locations. The association
of Jebel Musa with the Biblical Mount Sinai seems to
have first developed in the 3rd century AD when hermits
living in caves on the mountain began to identify their
mountain with the ancient holy peak.
Monastic life started at a very
early period in the region around
Mount
Sinai. Christian hermits began to gather at
Sinai from
the Middle of the 3rd Century. St. Antony, who retreated
into Egypt's
Eastern Desert, inspired many others to cast off
their worldly possessions and many of them settled at
the foot of Mount Sinai, along with other nearby
mountains, especially Mount Serbal, where they led a
life of strict spiritual and corporal discipline.
The life that these early hermits
followed was neither easy or safe. The 4th and 5th
centuries were particularly troublesome times, when
Christians were not only persecuted, but suffered from
barbarian assaults. The monk, Ammonius of Egypt, wrote a
Discourse upon the Holy Fathers slain on
Mount
Sinai and at Raitho, and there is much other
documentation of the massacre and martyrdom of the Holy
Fathers of the Sinai and Raitho by the Hagarenes and the  Blemmyes
of Africa, particularly during the Roman reign of
Diocletian. This nevertheless did not prevent the
development of monasticism in the Sinai desert, nor did
it prevent the fame of many of the hermits from
spreading both East and West.
Small monastic communities formed
very early in the
Sinai,
particularly at Mount Horeb, thought to be the site of
the Burning Bush and in the
Wadi Feiran (ancient Pharan). The anchorites lived
in caves, stone-built cells and huts. They spent their
days in silence, prayer and sanctity.
Tradition holds that, in 330 AD,
in response to a request by the ascetics of the
Sinai, the
Byzantine empress Helena (St. Helen) ordered the
building of a small church, dedicated to the Holy
Virgin, at the site of the Burning Bush, as well as a
fortified enclosure where the hermits  could
find refuge from the attacks of primitive nomadic
tribes.
Now, the South
Sinai
became a place of pilgrimage that was visited by many
from far away lands. In 1884, a manuscript was
discovered that relates a visit to the area by Aetheria
between 372 and 374 AD. She was a Spanish noblewoman who
was accompanied by a retinue of clerics. She relates
finding a small church on the summit of
Mount
Sinai, another one on Mount Horeb and a third one at
the site of the Burning Bush, near which there was a
fine garden with plenty of water.
Her account clearly reveals the
expansion of monasticism in the
Sinai
desert. In fact, by the 5th century, the growing
population of hermits was apparently headed by a
dignitary, mentioned as the Bishop of Pharan, who's
office was eventually taken over by the Bishop of Sinai.
With this development apparently came a request by the
Sinai monks, to Justinian, the Byzantium emperor, for
assistance. He thus founded a magnificent church, which
he enclosed within walls strong enough to withstand
attacks and protect the monks against nomadic raids,
which today is known to us as the
Monastery of St. Catherine.
By the 7th century, the Monastery
faced a dangerous situation and a grave crisis, mainly
due to the
Arab conquest. Although information on this period
is scant, one source tells that by the year 808, the
number of monks in the monastery had been reduced to
thirty, while Christian life on the
Sinai
peninsula had all but vanished. However, the monastery
itself did not vanish.
According to tradition, and
evident from indirect information, the Fathers of the
Monastery requested the protection of Mohammed himself,
who saw the Christians as
brothers in faith. Apparently, the request was favorably
accepted and the so called ahtiname, or "immunity
covenant" by Mohammed instructed his followers to
protect the monks of the Sinai. Though this document has
been a matter of controversy, it is doubtful that the
monastery could have survived without the protection
afforded by Mohammed and his successors.
 The
11th century marked a new period for the monks of the
Sinai.
There was a transfer of relics of St. Catherine to
France, and the presence of Crusaders in the Sinai
between 1099 and 1270 spurred the interest of European
Christians for the security and independence of the
monks and for the safeguard of the land properties
(dependencies) owned by the Monastery in Egypt,
Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus and Constantinople.
The fact that a castle presupposes
a military force accounts for the mention some authors
make of a military order of St. Catherine, founded in
1063, which would thus antedate any other military
order. No trace has been found, however, of the rule of
any such order, or of a list of its grand masters. From
the
Crusades the
Monastery of St. Catherine attracted many Latin
pilgrims, who gradually formed a brotherhood, the
members of which pretended to the knighthood. In return
for a vague promise to protect sacred shrines and
pilgrims, they were granted the coveted St. Catherine's
Cross. The carved wooden portal giving access to the
Narthex of the Katholikon (the earliest church in the
monastery, built about the same time as the enclosure
wall) and the various lain inscriptions in the old
Refectory date from those years. Interestingly though,
the Monastery had a Muslim garrison during the same
period, so the Fathers had to maintain a delicate
balance between the Christians of the West and the
Muslims of the region. In fact, to this day an ancient
Mosque, dating from the 10th or 11th century, sits
within the walls of the Mona |
een
born.
