"Socotra Archipelago, in the northwest Indian Ocean near the Gulf of Aden, is 250 km long and comprises four islands and two rocky islets which appear as a prolongation of the Horn of Africa. The site is of universal importance because of its biodiversity with rich and distinct flora and fauna..." Source: UNESCO.
Socotra was called Dioskouridou ('of the Dioscurides') or Dioscorida in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a first century AD shipping manual. According to the author of the Periplus, "Dioscorida ... is very large but desert and marshy, having rivers in it and crocodiles and many snakes and great lizards, of which the flesh is eaten and the fat melted and used instead of olive oil." Source: Fordham University Internet History Sourcebooks (paragraph 30).
Note: I'm not sure about this, but I think the Erythraean Sea is the old name for the Red Sea and at least part (?) of the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean. A map of the Erythraean Sea drawn in 169 BC by the Greek historian and geographer Agatharchides of Cnidus, can be found here. Socotra (lower right at the bottom of the map) was ideally located to be a jumping-off point for voyages to India.
Socotra has been called "the world's strangest place" with good reason. The plants on Socotra are truly bizarre, as can be seen in these pictures. The island's spectacular and alien landscape looks like something out of a science-fiction movie.
The ancient history of Socotra is obscure, but its inhabitants traded spices and the sap of their Dragon's Blood trees to Egypt and Rome. Its location near the mouth of the Red Sea made it an important stopover for cargo ships involved in the thriving maritime trade with the far east.
"The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all tapped the treasures of Socotra’s natural world: aromatic resins such as frankincense, medicinal aloe extract, and the dark red sap of the dragon’s blood tree, used for healing and as an artist’s color. Adventurers came to harvest the island’s wealth, despite stories that it was guarded by giant snakes living in its caves. The Queen of Sheba, Alexander the Great, and Marco Polo were among those who coveted Socotra’s riches." Source: National Geographic.
"The value of incense and dragon’s blood peaked during the time of the Roman Empire. Afterward, the island served mostly as a way station for traders, passing centuries in relative cultural isolation. Socotra’s residents lived generation after generation as their ancestors had: the mountain Bedouin minding their goats, the coastal residents fishing, and everyone harvesting dates. Island history was passed down through poetry, recited in the Socotri language."
According to Socotra Eco-Tours, Aristotle, Alexander the Great's tutor, selected a group of colonists to settle on Socotra. The idea was to harvest its myrhh, valued for its medicinal properties, and turn the island into a base for Alexander's invasion of India. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st cent BC) mentions Socotra as a major source of myrhh, labdanum (a kind of resin) and various aromatic plants. The island was an important way station where "[s]ailors and tradesmen not only bought precious resins and medical herbs...which they later on sold at markets in the Roman empire or the Indian kingdoms, but also gained strength and supplies necessary for their long journeys to the African coast, Madagascar or to Persia." Inscriptions in various languages have been found inside Hoq cave on the island. (See video below)
Considering the island's strategic location and valuable resources, I imagine it was fought over repeatedly by various empires in the ancient world. Most of this history, unfortunately, has been lost forever.
Note: "In 1834, the East India Company, in the expectation that the Mahra sultan of Qishn and Socotra, who resided at Qishn on the mainland [southern coast of modern Yemen], would accept an offer to sell the island, stationed a garrison on Socotra. Faced with the unexpected firm refusal of the sultan to sell, however, as well as the lack of good anchorages for a coaling station to be used by the new steamship line being put into service on the Suez-Bombay route, the British left in 1835." (Wikipedia)
Is The Real Mount Sinai In Saudi Arabia?
"'Yahweh came from Sinai' (Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalms 68:18). It is in Sinai that Moses first encounters Yahweh; it is back to Sinai that Moses leads Yahweh’s people from Egypt; and it is from Sinai that, two years later, on Yahweh’s order again, Moses sets off with them to conquer a piece of the Fertile Crescent.
"But where is Sinai, with its Mount Horeb [the mountain where God gave Moses the 10 commandments]? Exodus unequivocally places it in the land of Midian ...
"And where is Midian? Greek authors unanimously place it in northwestern Arabia, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba [see map]. Even Paul the Apostle, who spent three years in Arabia, knew that 'Sinai is a mountain in Arabia' (Galatians 4:25). It was not before the 4th century that the biblical Sinai was misplaced in the
Egyptian peninsula, probably for geopolitical reasons (Egypt was within the control of the Roman Empire, unlike Arabia, under Persian influence). But placing the biblical Sinai west of the Gulf of Aqaba didn’t make any sense, since that region had always belonged to Egypt (archeology has confirmed it). Why would the Israelites have settled there when chased by the Egyptian army?" Source: "The Arabian Cradle of Zion," by French historian Laurent Guyenot, The Unz Review. Map from World Atlas.
Comment: Whether you agree with Laurent Guyenot in general, he's right about one thing at least. The idea that the biblical Mount Sinai / Mount Horeb is located on the Sinai peninsula doesn't make any sense at all. If the Jews were fleeing Egypt, why would they settle on Egyptian territory? Assuming this is actual history we're talking about here -- a very big assumption -- they would have left Egypt altogether and crossing the Gulf of Aqaba into Arabia would have been a good way to put some distance between them and the pharaoh. If that's what actually happened -- if the real Mount Sinai is in Arabia and not on the Sinai peninsula -- it would overturn centuries of accepted religious doctrine:
"The biblical Mount Sinai is one of the most important sacred places in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions. The summit [in Egypt] has a mosque that is still used by Muslims, and a Greek Orthodox chapel, constructed in 1934 on the ruins of a 16th-century church, that is not open to the public. The chapel encloses the rock which is considered to be the source for the biblical Tablets of Stone. At the summit also is 'Moses' cave', where Moses was said to have waited to receive the Ten Commandments." (Wikipedia)
The supposed Mount Sinai in Egypt. Is this just a pile of rocks in the middle of the desert?
I'm not sure how many Christians, Jews and Muslims still accept the idea that Mount Sinai is in Egypt. Some Christians, at least, have come around to the belief that the mountain is in Saudi Arabia and the idea seems to be gaining in popularity. The UNZ Review article quoted above points out the effect this is having on Middle Eastern politics:
"The growing popularization of the Arabian Sinai cannot be unrelated to the NEOM project announced in October 2017 by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman: a high-tech, ultra-connected, transnational mega city and economic zone, covering 10,230 square-miles (about the size of Massachusetts), which happens to correspond roughly to ancient Midian."
There's a lot that could be said about the Saudis, the NEOM project and the war in Yemen, among other things, but never mind all that. The UNZ Review article is as much about the current politics of the region as it is about the location of the mountain where Moses talked to YHWH, but I'm just interested in the ancient history here. I'm not going to comment one way or another about the political stuff, but I will say that there is something deeply sinister about the Orwellian NEOM smart-city project.
Getting back to where Mount Sinai is actually located, it would be interesting to know if the conventional wisdom has been wrong all these years, but I'm not sure how anybody could prove that this or that pile of granite in the desert is the biblical mountain where Moses received the ten commandments. You would need an ancient map or some kind of non-biblical documentary evidence to do that and nothing of the sort has been discovered as far as I know. But even if the question could be settled conclusively, what difference would it make?
Scholarly interest aside, the importance of all this depends on whether you believe that the Old Testament stories are true. Call me a skeptic, but I don't believe that YHWH appeared on a mountaintop in the form of a burning bush and gave Moses a list of commandments. I don't believe that YHWH exists in the first place and Moses himself is probably a mythological character:
"The modern scholarly consensus is that the figure of Moses is a mythical figure, and while, as William G. Dever writes, 'a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in the southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C.', archaeology cannot confirm his existence. Certainly no Egyptian sources mention Moses or the events of Exodus–Deuteronomy, nor has any archaeological evidence been discovered in Egypt or the Sinai wilderness to support the story in which he is the central figure." (Wikipedia)
The Exodus itself, the founding myth of the Israelites, probably never happened as well:
"The consensus of modern scholars is that the Bible does not give an accurate account of the origins of Israel, which formed as an entity in the southern Transjordan region by the 13th century BCE from the indigenous Canaanite culture. There is no evidence that the Israelites were ever enslaved in ancient Egypt or even lived there and scholars broadly agree that the Exodus has no historical basis. There is a widespread agreement that the composition of the Torah or Pentateuch, the biblical books which contain the Exodus narrative, took place in the Middle Persian Period (5th century BCE), although the traditions behind it are older and can be found in the writings of the 8th-century BCE prophets." (Wikipedia)
In light of all this, the question of where Mount Sinai was located seems pretty much irrelevant.
Posted at 07:00 AM in Ancient Africa, Ancient Israel, Ancient Literature, Ancient Middle East, Arabia, Commentary, Culture, Current Affairs, Egypt, Hidden History, Religion, Videos | Permalink