Mount Sinai Book Launch with George Manginis, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, May 25, 2016, 6:30–9:30 pm

Mount Sinai examines the history of Hagia Koryphē (in Greek) and Jabal Mūsā (in Arabic): a mountain peak above the Monastery of St Catherine at South Sinai in Egypt. Known for centuries as the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God, as described in Exodus, the book explores the ways in which the landscape of the summit of Mount Sinai was experienced and transformed, using textual criticism, historical analysis, art history and, for the first time, archaeological interpretation. Beginning in the third century AD, when the identification of the Biblical ‘Mount Sinai’ was established, Mount Sinai extends through to the early twentieth century. Covering the natural environment, the Bedouin and early Christians, the importance of Mount Sinai in Muslim tradition, the cult of St Catherine, pilgrimage, as well as the scholarly, artistic and tourist phenomenon of the nineteenth century, Mount Sinai is a comprehensive and complete history of this remarkable place.

George Manginis has taught at the University of Edinburgh, SOAS – The University of London, the British Museum, the Benaki Museum in Athens and the New College of the Humanities in London. In 2013 he was a Stanley J Seeger Fellow at Princeton University.