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To Sinai via the desert. Wady Mokattab
Summary
Photograph taken from Wadi Muktab upstream close to El Buga area, looking east and showing Gebel Rishat El Muwilih in the background from the left to the centre, the outlet of Wadi El Seih in centre-left from a 4 to 5km distance, the eastern slopes of Gebel Merzika to the left, and the mainstream of Wadi Muktab in the foreground(?). (Source: A. Shams, Sinai Peninsula Research, 2018)
The vicinity surrounding Wadi Muktab is dotted with Pre-pottery and Pottery Neolithic sites (8,300-4,500 BCE) and later periods. The valley is the west most and shortest inland route between Sinai's Biblical south and ancient Egyptian central-west (turquoise and copper mines 2950?-1137 BCE), along with Wadi Agir, Wadi Libna (Akir), Wadi Imleih and Naqb Segar. Wadi Muktab (or written valley due to its hundreds of rock inscriptions) was a key caravan way station on Darb El Batraa in Sinai Peninsula (Way of Petra or Exodus Traditional Route). The 200 plus two-group rock inscriptions date back to the Nabatean (1st century CE) and Byzantine (4th-7th centuries CE) periods, and were written in Hebrew, Thamudic, Arabic and Greek. There is an estimate of 10,000 (2,000 plus documented) Nabatean rock inscriptions in Sinai Peninsula (1st century CE). Sawalha (14th century CE) and other tribes inhabit the vicinity. (Source: A. Shams, Sinai Peninsula Research, 2018)
Title from: Catalogue of photographs & lantern slides ... [1936?].
Caption on negative: Wady Mokatlab.
Date from Matson LOT cards.
Gift; Episcopal Home; 1978.
The G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection is a source of historical images of the Middle East. The majority of the images depict Palestine (present-day Israel and the West Bank) from 1898 to 1946. Most of the Library of Congress collection consists of over 23,000 glass and film photographic negatives and transparencies created by the American Colony Photo Department and its successor firm, the Matson Photo Service. The American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem was one of several photo services operating in the Middle East before 1900. Catering primarily to the tourist trade, the American Colony and its competitors photographed holy sites, often including costumed actors recreating Biblical scenes. The firm’s photographers were residents of Palestine with knowledge of the land and people that gave them an advantage and made their coverage intimate and comprehensive. They documented Middle East culture, history, and political events from before World War I through the collapse of Ottoman rule, the British Mandate period, World War II, and the emergence of the State of Israel. The Matson Collection also includes images of people and locations in present-day Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey. Additionally, the firm produced photographs from an East African trip. The collection came to the Library of Congress between 1966 and 1981, through a series of gifts made by Eric Matson and his beneficiary, the Home for the Aged of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Los Angeles (now called the Kensington Episcopal Home).
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