The map, probably designed for would-be pilgrims, appears to have been produced from a drawing by one of the members of the St.Catherine’s monastic community, a Hieromonachos Dionysius. An hieromonachos was an orthodox priest who had taken a vow of celibacy and therefore had the possibility of ascending the church hierarchy, as opposed to married priests, who were not able to  advance beyond the rank of protopresvyteros.

The map encompasses the whole of the Nile delta and Alexandria on the right with the Pyramids and City of Cairo upper right. Moses’ parting of the waters of the Red Sea and the engulfing of the pursuing Egyptian Pharaoh & his troops are also shown, as are many other events from the travels of the Israelites in Sinai, as described in the Old Testament book of Exodus (& Numbers) These include : Moses’ striking of the rock to produce water in the Sinai desert (widely believed to be the Feiran Oasis);  the site of the Burning Bush (adjacent to St.Catherine’s Monastery) where God first spoke to Moses; Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God; the creation of the Tabernacle and Arc of the Covenant to house the Ten Commandments;  the breaking of the Tablets; Aaron’s Golden Bull & Moses’ brass Serpent on a pole. Prominent centrally is the impressive walled edifice of St.Catherine’s, one of the defining features of the Holy Land and revered by many as one of the greatest religious centres of the World. Originally built by the Emperor Justinian in the 6th Century, beside an earlier chapel reputedly built on the site of the Burning Bush, it remains one of the World’s oldest working monasteries, its fortified impregnability (evidenced here by the delivery of food by means of a pulley to a doorway high up in its walls) preserving to this day, a unique repository of ancient art, mosaics, icons, books and manuscripts that is almost unrivalled. The engraving includes the monks’ Cemetery located in fertile oasis-like gardens outside the main monastery buildings, shown with two buildings in the centre, presumably the Chapel of St. Tryphon and the Charnel House. The scantiness of earth has never permitted permanent graves, so the monks buried in the cemetery were later exhumedand their bones placed in the Chapel’s ossuary.

The remains of archbishops to this day remain kept in special niches. The Charnel House also served a spiritual purpose, the sight of the piled bones facilitated  monks and visitors to meditate on the reality of death and on the vanity of human and earthly matters. A procession of the Archbishop can be seen in front of the monastery. Behind the Monastery can be seen the winding 4000-step pathway, the so-called Sikket Saydna Musa (“The Path of Moses”). Ancient chapels and structures honouring saints and the Virgin Mary appear all along the main route, including two stone-hewn archways where, it is said, long ago, monks heard confessions from the pilgrims. Nearing the summit can be seen a small chapel and mosque, still in existence today. To the right can be seen another of the peaks of Mount Sinai, on whose summit Saint Catherine of Alexandria’s remains can be seen. A pair of winged angels also appear carrying her body in the upper right of the image, the popular account of her association with Sinai according to long-established legend. St.Catherine achieved widespread popularity in Europe from the time of the Crusades onwards and most particularly in France in the 15th Century, at the time of the 100 Years War, when the Saint is said to have appeared to Joan of Arc and been divinely appointed as Joan’s adviser and guide.

Throughout the 16th & 17th Centuries, the monastery itself established widespread links with other religious centres across Eastern Europe, the Middle East & Russia and counted many of the Russian Czars & Czarinas amongst its benefactors, including Catherine the Great. This probably accounts for the use of the Church Slavonic (Slavic) texts within the map. As yet, we have been unable to discover anything about the supposed author of this engraving, Sig. Michel Ferro da Nausa, whose imprint appears bottom centre.  It must be assumed that he brought Dionysius’ drawings or sketches back to Europe after a personal journey or religious pilgrimage to the region. 

An equally scarce English copy of this engraving produced by the London publisher Thomas Bowles, circa 1750, is also known and gives some hints as to the origins of the work. The title of Bowles’ larger engraving (93 x 57 cms) is “A Prospect and Description of Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb or the Mount of God...engraved from a Draught of one of the Religious belonging to the Monastery”.