The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai ( ; ; ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in West Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Africa and Asia. Sinai has a land area of about (6 percent of Egypt's total area) and a population of approximately 600,000 people. Administratively, the vast majority of the area of the Sinai Peninsula is divided into two governorates: the North Sinai Governorate and the South Sinai Governorate. Three other governorates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez Governorate on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia Governorate in the center, and Port Said Governorate in the north.
In the classical era, the region was known as Arabia Petraea. The peninsula acquired the name Sinai in modern times due to the assumption that a mountain near Saint Catherine's Monastery, named Mount Sinai, is the Biblical Mount Sinai, one of the most religiously significant places in the Abrahamic religions.
The Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt ( BC). This comes in stark contrast to the region north of it, the Levant (the present-day territories of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria), which, due largely to its strategic geopolitical location and cultural convergences, has historically been the center of conflict between Egypt and various states of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. In periods of foreign occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire (1517–1867) and the United Kingdom (1882–1956). Israel, along with France and the United Kingdom, invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis of 1956. Israel invaded the Sinai at the start of the Six-Day War of 1967 due to Egyptian forces massing to invade Israel. On 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War, seizing most of the east bank of the Suez Canal while Israel seized even more area to its west. Israel exchanged the ten kilometers along the east bank and territory seized in 1973 for a 1974 ceasefire. In 1982, as a result of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979, Israel withdrew from all of the Sinai Peninsula except the contentious territory of Taba, which was returned after a ruling by a commission of arbitration in 1989.
Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its natural setting, rich coral reefs, and biblical history.
Name
Ancient Egyptian names
Because the Sinai Peninsula was the main region where mining of turquoise was carried out in Ancient Egypt, it was called Biau (the "Mining Country") and Khetiu Mafkat ("Ladders of Turquoise")"Étude de la turquoise : de ses traitements et imitations" , thesis by Claire Salanne, Université de Nantes, 2009. by the ancient Egyptians.
"Sinai" The origin of the modern name is a source of contention (see Biblical Mount Sinai for a fuller discussion). The name Sinai (, ) may have been derived from the ancient Mesopotamian moon-god Sin. The moon-deity Sin is associated with the area; the ancient Egyptian moon-god Thoth is also associated with Sin, and his worship was widespread throughout the south tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906) quotes a Rabbinic source, the 8th- or 9th-century Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, which derives the name from the biblical Hebrew word seneh (), a word only known from two occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, in both cases referring to the burning bush. Rabbi Eliezer opines that Mount Horeb only received the name Sinai after God appeared to Moses in the shape of a burning bush.
The English name came from Latin, ultimately from Hebrew , (, in English phonetic spelling). In English, the name is now usually pronounced . An alternative, now dated pronunciation in English was .
Geography
Sinai is triangular in shape, with its northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and its southwest and southeast shores on the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. It is linked to the African continent by the Isthmus of Suez, wide strip of land, containing the Suez Canal. The eastern isthmus, linking it to the Asian mainland, is around wide. The peninsula is on the African Plate with the Arabian Plate on its eastern boundary.Homberg, Catherine and Martina Bachmann, Evolution of the Levant Margin and Western Arabia Platform Since the Mesozoic, The Geological Society of London, 2010, p 65
The southernmost tip is the Ras Muhammad National Park.
Most of the Sinai Peninsula is divided among the two governorates of Egypt: South Sinai (Ganub Sina) and North Sinai (Shamal Sina). Together, they comprise around 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 sq mi) and have a population (January 2013) of 597,000. Three more governates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez (el-Sewais) is on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia (el-Isma'ileyyah) in the centre, and Port Said in the north.
The largest city of Sinai is Arish, capital of the North Sinai, with around 160,000 residents. Other larger settlements include Sharm El Sheikh and El-Tor, on the southern coast. Inland Sinai is arid (effectively a desert), mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine and Nekhel.
Climate Sinai is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies. Winter temperatures in some of Sinai's cities and towns reach .
History Chalcolithic A cave with paintings of people and animals was discovered about north of Mount Catherine in January 2020, dates back to the Chalcolithic Period, –4th millennium BCE.
Ancient Egypt From the time of the First Dynasty or before, the Egyptians mined turquoise in Sinai at two locations, now called by their Egyptian Arabic names Wadi Maghareh and Serabit el-Khadim. The mines were worked intermittently and on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable. These may be the first historically attested mines.
The fortress Tjaru in western Sinai was a place of banishment for Egyptian criminals. The Way of Horus connected it across northern Sinai with ancient Canaan.
Achaemenid Persian Period At the end of the time of Darius I, the Great (521–486 BCE) Sinai was part of the Persian province of Abar-Nahra, which means 'beyond the river [Euphrates]'.
Cambyses successfully managed the crossing of the hostile Sinai Desert, traditionally Egypt's first and strongest line of defence, and brought the Egyptians under Psamtik III, son and successor of Ahmose, to battle at Pelusium. The Egyptians lost and retired to Memphis; the city fell to the Persian control and the Pharaoh was carried off in captivity to Susa in Persia.
Roman and Byzantine Periods
Rhinocorura (Greek for "Cut-off Noses") and the eponymous region around it were used by Ptolemaid Egypt as a place of banishment for criminals, today known as Arish.
After the death of the last Nabatean king, Rabbel II Soter, in 106, the Roman emperor Trajan faced practically no resistance and conquered the kingdom on 22 March 106. With this conquest, the Roman Empire went on to control all shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Sinai Peninsula became part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.Taylor, Jane (2001). Petra And the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans. I. B. Tauris, , p. 73-74 ()
Saint Catherine's Monastery on the foot of Mount Sinai was constructed by order of the Emperor Justinian between 527 and 565. Most of the Sinai Peninsula became part of the province of Palaestina Salutaris in the 6th century.
Ayyubid Period During the Crusades it was under the control of Fatimid Caliphate. Later, Sultan Saladin abolished the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt and took this region under his control too. It was the military route from Cairo to Damascus during the Crusades. And in order to secure this route, he built a citadel on the island of Pharaoh (near present Taba) known by his name 'Saladin's Citadel'.
Mamluk and Ottoman Periods
The peninsula was governed as part of Egypt under the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt from 1260 until 1517, when the Ottoman Sultan, Selim the Grim, defeated the Egyptians at the Battles of Marj Dabiq and al-Raydaniyya, and incorporated Egypt into the Ottoman Empire. From then until 1906, Sinai was administered by the Ottoman provincial government of the Pashalik of Egypt, even following the establishment of the Muhammad Ali dynasty's rule over the rest of Egypt in 1805.
British control In 1906, the Ottoman Porte formally transferred administration of Sinai to the Khedivate of Egypt, which essentially meant that it fell under the control of the British Empire, who had occupied and largely controlled Egypt since the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War. The border imposed by the British runs in an almost straight line from Rafah on the Mediterranean shore to Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba. This line has served as the de jure eastern border of Egypt ever since.
Egyptian-Israeli conflicts 1956 war In 1956, Nasserist Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal, a waterway marking the boundary between Egyptian territory in Africa and the Sinai Peninsula. Thereafter, Israeli ships were prohibited from using the Canal, owing to the state of war between the two states. Egypt also prohibited ships from using Egyptian territorial waters on the eastern side of the peninsula to travel to and from Israel, effectively imposing a blockade on the Israeli port of Eilat. In October 1956, in what is known in Egypt as the Tripartite Aggression, Israel Defense Forces troops, aided by the United Kingdom and France (which sought to reverse the nationalization and regain control over the Suez Canal), invaded Sinai and occupied much of the peninsula within a few days. In March 1957, Israel withdrew its forces from Sinai, following strong pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union. Thereafter, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) was stationed in Sinai to prevent any further conflict in the Sinai.
1967 war
On 16 May 1967, Egypt ordered the UNEF out of Sinai and reoccupied it militarily. Secretary-General U Thant eventually complied and ordered the withdrawal without Security Council authorisation. In the course of the Six-Day War that broke out shortly thereafter, Israel occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula, and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan (which Jordan had controlled since 1949), and the Golan Heights from Syria. The Suez Canal, the east bank of which was now occupied by Israel, was closed. Israel commenced efforts at large scale Israeli settlement in the Sinai Peninsula.
War of Attrition
Following the Israeli conquest of Sinai, Egypt launched the War of Attrition (1967–70) aimed at forcing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai. The war saw protracted conflict in the Suez Canal Zone, ranging from limited to large-scale combat. Israeli shelling of the cities of Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez on the west bank of the canal, led to high civilian casualties (including the virtual destruction of Suez), and contributed to the flight of 700,000 Egyptian internal refugees. Ultimately, the war concluded in 1970 with no change in the front line.
Yom Kippur War