Fig. 5.—Amen-em-hat III, Thoth and Hathor. Maghara. (Petrie: Researches in Sinai.)
Other monuments found at Maghara point to the same conclusion. Thus one rock-tablet represents King Khufu (IV 2), the great pyramid builder, smiting the Anu in front of the ibis-headed figure of Thoth who stands holding out his sceptre facing him ([Fig. 4]). Other Pharaohs are represented as smiters. But after the Fifth Dynasty the opposition which the Pharaohs encountered in Sinai must have come to an end, for later Pharaohs were no longer represented as smiters, but are seen in the double capacity of lord of Upper and of Lower Egypt standing and facing the ibis-headed figure of the moon-god Thoth, who now holds out to them his sceptre supporting an ankh and a dad, the Egyptian emblems of life and stability. Among the Pharaohs so represented was Amen-em-hat III, sixth king of the Twelfth Dynasty, who is shown facing the god Thoth behind whom the goddess Hathor is seen ([Fig. 5]). The interpretation is that the Pharaoh is now acting in complete agreement with the divinities of the place. Of these Thoth stands for the moon-god who originally had his shrine at Maghara, and Hathor stands for the presiding goddess who had her shrine at Serabit. This shrine or sanctuary at Serabit is of special importance in the religious associations of the peninsula.
CHAPTER III
THE SANCTUARY OF SERABIT
THE existence of the sanctuary at Serabit in Sinai was unknown to Europeans till the year 1762, when it was chanced upon by Carsten Niebuhr, who did not, however, record its name. Seetzen who visited it between 1809 and 1810 noted this as Serrabit-el-Chadem.[20] Sarbat is Arabic for height, khadem signifies slave. But Prof. Sayce claims for the name a different derivation. In ancient Egyptian ba, plur. bit, signifies hole or mine, khetem signifies fortress. Serabit el Khadem thus signifies mine fortress, with the prefix sar, which probably stands for exalted.
Other place names in the district probably date from the ancient Egyptians also. Thus the valley leading up from the coastal plain of El Markha to the mine district is called Wadi Baba, i.e. mine valley. Again, a tributary of the Baba, with its valley head close to Serabit, is the Wadi Bateh, a name which probably includes the word for mine also.
The sanctuary of Serabit[21] at the outset consisted of a cave, or rather of two caves adjacent to one another, of which the larger, which has been squared, measures 20 by 10 feet, the smaller one measures 6 by 4 feet with three steps leading up to a round-headed apse or recess ([Fig. 9]).