The monuments found in Sinai contain information which points to the existence of moon-worship there at a remote period of history. These monuments consist in rock-tablets which were engraved by the Pharaohs from the First Dynasty onwards over the mines which they worked at Maghara, and of remains of various kinds discovered in the temple ruins of the neighbouring Sarbut-el-Khadem or Serabit. Maghara more especially was associated with the moon-god and was presumably the site of a shrine during the period of Babylonian or Arabic influence which preceded the invasion of the peninsula by the Egyptians ([Fig. 1]).
Among the Egyptians, Thoth, the moon-god, had shrines at Hierakonpolis and at Abydos in Upper Egypt, and in both these places he was worshipped under the semblance of a baboon. He was worshipped also at Hermopolis in Lower Egypt, but here he was represented as ibis-headed. In Sinai we find him represented sometimes as a baboon and sometimes as ibis-headed.
Thus the excavations of the temple-ruins at Serabit in 1906 led to the discovery of several figures of baboons. One was the rude figure some three inches high which is here represented; it was found in the cave that was the treasure-house of the sanctuary. This little figure is similar in appearance and in workmanship to figures found at Hierakonpolis and at Abydos, the centres of moon-worship in Upper Egypt. Several of these figures were found at Hierakonpolis.[17] At Abydos more than sixty were discovered in the winter of 1902 in a chamber at the lowest temple level, where they were apparently placed when the later cult of Osiris superseded the earlier cult of Thoth. This took place in pre-dynastic times.[18] The figure of the baboon who stood for the lunar divinity in Egypt, was doubtless deemed a suitable offering to the sacred shrine at Serabit in Sinai, because of the nearness of this shrine to the centre of moon-worship of the country. If the figure was carried to Sinai at the time when similar figures were offered in Egypt, the establishment of the moon-cult in the peninsula dates back to the pre-dynastic days of Egypt.[19]
Fig. 3.—Sneferu ravaging the land. (Ancient Egypt, a periodical, 1914, Part i.)
Another baboon, carved life-size in limestone with an inscription around its base, came out of one of the chambers of the adytum to the sacred cave at Serabit, the work and inscription of which dated it to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. The presence of this figure suggests that the Egyptians associated their moon-god with the moon-worship of the peninsula.
Fig. 4.—Khufu smiting the Anu before Thoth.
The chief shrine or sanctuary of the moon god in the peninsula probably lay in Wadi Maghara where mining on the part of the Arabs preceded that of the Egyptians, for the Egyptians here fought for the possession of the mines. This is shown by the tablets carved in the living rock, which commemorate the Pharaohs from King Semerkhet (I 7) of the First Dynasty onwards. They are represented as smiters of the enemy above the mines which they worked. One of these tablets represents Sneferu, the ninth king of the Third Dynasty, who wears a head-dress that consists of a double plume which rises from a pair of horns as is seen in the illustration. The double plume is well known, but the horns are foreign to Egypt, and recall the lunar horns that are worn by Eabani, the devotee of the moon-god Ea or ancient Babylonian seal cylinders. The adoption of horns by the Pharaoh of Egypt seems to indicate that he has usurped the authority of the earlier ruler of the place ([Fig. 3]).