Wadi Mukattab

Fragmentary natural slab, red sandstone. It is incised with Nabataean or Sinaitic inscriptions. From Wadi Mukattab, Egypt. Probably Nabataean period. The British Museum, London

The Wadi Mukattab (Arabic for "Valley of Writing"), also known as the Valley of Inscriptions, is a wadi on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula near St Catherine's Monastery. It links the main road in the Wadi Feiran with the Wadi Maghareh's ancient turquoise mining area. The wadi is named after its valley's many petroglyphs. Nabataean and Greek inscriptions are abundant.

Gallery

• 
  Lepsius's route in 1859, showing the inscriptions
• 
  Wadi Mukattab in the 1869 Ordnance Survey map
• 
  Nabataean inscriptions in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum in Wadi Mukattab

See also

• Georgian graffiti of Nazareth and Sinai
• Rivers of Egypt
• Biblical Sinai

References

Bibliography

• Bowersock, Glen Warren (1983), Roman Arabia, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-77756-5
• Dahari, Uzi; Calderson, Rivka; Israel, Rashut ha-attiqot (2000), Monastic Settlements in South Sinai in the Byzantine Period: The Archaeological Remains, Israel Antiquities Authorities Reports, No. 9, Israel Antiquities Authority, ISBN 978-9654060370.
• Rothenberg, Beno; Weyer, Helfried (1979), Sinai: Pharaohs, Miners, Pilgrims, and Soldiers, Binns, ISBN 978-0896740020.