Portrait of Moses at St. Catherine's Monastery
St. Catherine’s Monastery is renowned for its art
treasures. It has a library of about 4,500 ancient manuscripts, second only to the Vatican Library in Rome. It also has over 2,000 icons, considered to be the largest collection in the world.
Some of the ancient manuscripts are always on display. The consist mainly of Greek manuscripts, but there are also Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Georgian, Slavonic, and Syriac manuscripts as well.
The monastery no longer possesses its most prized manuscript—the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century copy of most of the
Bible in Greek. It was discovered in 1844 by Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf, who obtained it for Tsar Alexander I of
Russia.
Most of the Codex Sinaiticus is now displayed at the British Museum in London. Russia sold it in 1933 for $100,000.
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