Traveling Through Sinai

Sinai has long attracted travelers to its ancient caravan routes and haunting landscapes, and visitors have frequently left written accounts of their experiences. In this wide-ranging anthology, Deborah Manley and Sahar Abdel- Hakim have collected dozens of accounts and observations from travelers who have written about Sinai, its people, its sights, and its historical and biblical landmarks.
Starting with Egeria, a fourth-century Christian who relates her visit to Mt. Sinai and the Burning Bush,Traveling through Sinai offers a diverse collection of voices over the centuries. Among themare the German friar Felix Fabri, who visited in 1492, and nineteenth-century antiquarian William Flinders Petrie, giving his impressions of the Bedouins of the peninsula. French novelist Alexandre Dumas writes of meeting two monks in the desert carrying a letter signed by Napoleon, while others describe crossing the canal at Suez, the ancient inscriptions of Wadi Mukattab, and the harrowing experiences of desert travel.

Deborah Manley has lived in India, Canada, and Nigeria. She is the author of a number of books, includingThe Trans-Siberian Railway: A Traveller's Anthology.

Sahar Abdel-Hakim is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Cairo University. They are both founding members of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE), and are the editors ofTraveling through Egypt (AUC Press, 2004) and Egypt and the Nile (AUC Press, 2008).