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Sinai, shepherd and sheep - Public domain image. Dry plate negative.
Summary
Title from negative sleeve.
Photograph taken from the southeastern end of EL Raha Plain (Biblical encampment of the Israelites), looking southeast and showing Wadi Sharig and the pointed summit of Ras El Sefsafa (Monacha, Biblical Mount Horeb) to the right, Naqb Sho'eib (Siqqat Sho'eib) to the left side of the mountain, and the summit Gebel Armaziya to the Naqb's left, from a 1.8km distance. (Source: A. Shams, Sinai Peninsula Research, 2018)
Middle Paleolithic (>17,000 BCE) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic (B) (6,700-6,000 BCE) sites are located at the southern end of El Raha Plain. El Raha Plain is recognized as the traditional location where the Israelites encamped at the foot of Biblical Mount Horeb. The Gebaliya tribe traditionally followed a seasonal migration cycle until 1980s CE, herding on pastures at different altitudes, where the Bedouins spent late Autumn and Winter at El Melga Plain and suggesting the photograph was taken during that time. (Source: A. Shams, Sinai Peninsula Research, 2018)
Taken either by the American Colony Photo Department or its successor, the Matson Photo Service.
Guide card: Sinai.
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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