As Petrie recognized, Hathor represents some Semitic deity. Her cult was Semitic and not Egyptian, and was earlier than any known in Palestine or Arabia. Her Semitic title "baalath" (on which see BAAL) was subsequently read upon some remarkable inscribed monuments written in characters which come between the Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancestral Semitic and European al phabets. They are of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and possibly the XIIth; and although the inscriptions still defy complete decipher ment, the supposition that they were by, or refer to, the Israelites is—as yet at least—as baseless as an early view that the Aramaean "Semitic inscriptions," mentioned above, had a like origin. The script is of exceptional interest for the problem of the alphabet. It is disputed whether it is to be regarded as the actual ancestor of the two great branches: (I) the South Arabian, (2) the North Semitic (Phoenician, etc.) and the Greek, or whether it is only one of other forms once current before the types became fixed. In any event, since the Sinaitic peninsula touches the Delta and the South Palestinian towns of Rhinocolura (el-eArish) and Gaza, both of which were in contact with North Arabia and the Levant, its situation makes it a natural centre for the rise and distribution of the alphabet (q.v.).
The resources of the peninsula would obviously attract the attention of peoples other than those of Egypt and Babylonia. Amenemhet III. (XIIth Dynasty) and Queen Hatshepshut (XVIIIth Dynasty) industriously exploited Serabit, and with the Ramessids traces of Egypt come to an end. But the invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos (whose seat was at the Delta city of Avaris) comes between the first and second of these periods, while the third marks the decline of Egypt and the increase of Semitic power. It is very unlikely, therefore, that the wealth of the peninsula was appreciated only by Egypt. The peninsula was the meeting place of diverse influences. It was exposed, on the north, to Aegean, Philistine and other peoples of the eastern Mediterranean. The "land of the Philistines" extended southwards from Gath, Gaza and Gerar (Gen. xxvi., Deut. ii. 23, I Sam. xxvii. 8---I I) ; and it is noteworthy that hereabouts are found the markedly un Semitic names (Kadesh-) Barnea, Ziklag and 'Amalek (perhaps an Arab plural of some such form as 'Amlak.). It is not known whether they point to Philistine or related influence. (See PHILIS TINES.) They do not seem to be Egyptian, although Egyptian in fluence can be traced as far east as Tema (Teima) in North Arabia. Egypt (see MIZRAIM) would lay claim to the whole peninsula, and the "Wady of Egypt" (el-Arish) formed the north ern end of the boundary. (Cf. I Ki. viii. 65.) None the less, the peninsula was Semitic rather than Egyptian, and was occupied by tribes with South Palestinian connections. Biblical tradition
groups all these under Hagar and Ishmael, Esau, Edom, Mt. Seir and the Horites, and Abraham's concubine Keturah. More over, the Horite name Lotan, with which Lot, the ancestor of Ammon and Moab, may no doubt be connected, seems to be an echo of Retenu, an Egyptian name for Palestine ; and whether this be so or not, the fact that men of Retenu are explicitly men tioned in Egyptian inscriptions of the XIIth Dynasty at Serabit, unites the peninsula naturally with the Semites of Palestine.
How the name Sinai arose can hardly be determined. There is a wilderness of Sin (Exod. xvi. I)—Zin (Deut. xxxii. 51, etc.) is quite different—and Sin (Ezek. xxx. 15; old Egyptian sines), situated at or near Pelusium, may have the same meaning. The appearance of the old Babylonian moon-god Sin in this part of the Semitic world is as striking as that of Baal-Zephon, the "Moun tain of the north," by the Red Sea (see Exod. xiv. 2), and of Mt. Nebo in Moab (Deut. xxxii. 49, seq.). These names, with the Semitic cult at Serabit, and the remains of a more or less con temporary sanctuary at ed-Dra, in Moab, point to some definite religious culture long before Israelite times. Sin, the moon-god, had his most famous seats at Ur in Babylonia and at Harran in North Syria ; and when, in the 6th century B.C., Nabonidus in terested himself in the moon-cult at these places, he also visited Teima in North Arabia—presumably for the same reason. Hebrew tradition claimed, through Abraham (q.v.), an early relationship with both Ur and Harran, and some evidence has been adduced by scholars to suggest that Yahweh, the god of Israel, was probably once regarded as a moon-god. (See Burney, Judges, PP. 249, seq.) Yet while the moon-cult seems to have been particularly prominent in early Semitic religion, and in the Sinaitic area, it is not the moon-god but the sun-god who, as god of justice, would be most naturally associated with a law-giving, even as it is from the sun-god Shamash that the Babylonian law-giver Ham murabi received his great code. The religious history of the Sinaitic area goes back to a remote date, and is pre-Israelite ; but the biblical narratives have their own national traditions of its significance for them, and these must be subjected to a critical analysis. (See AARON, MOSES, EXODUS, NUMBERS and HEBREW RELIGION.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.—See Petrie (and Currelly) , Researches in Sinai (1906) ; L. Eckenstein, History of Sinai (1921). For the inscriptions at Serabit, see in the first instance, the articles by A. N. Gardiner and by Cowley in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, iii., T, seq.
(S. A. C.)