Francis Frith - The Wadee el-Mukattab, Sinai Frith

Rock formation with Sinaitic inscriptions, also scrub growth, in a region noted for natural caves.
Photograph taken from Wadi Muktab central area, looking north and showing Gebel Merzika in the background from the left to the centre from a 9km distance and part of the rock inscriptions in the central section of the valley adjacent to the western cliffs to the left (the largest concentration of rock inscriptions). (Source: A. Shams, Sinai Peninsula Research, 2018)
The vicinity surrounding Wadi Muktab is dotted with Pre-pottery and Pottery Neolithic sites (8,300-4,500 BCE) and later periods. The valley is the west most and shortest inland route between Sinai's Biblical south and ancient Egyptian central-west (turquoise and copper mines 2950?-1137 BCE), along with Wadi Agir, Wadi Libna (Akir), Wadi Imleih and Naqb Segar. Wadi Muktab (or written valley due to its hundreds of rock inscriptions) was a key caravan way station on Darb El Batraa in Sinai Peninsula (Way of Petra or Exodus Traditional Route). The 200 plus two-group rock inscriptions date back to the Nabatean (1st century CE) and Byzantine (4th-7th centuries CE) periods, and were written in Hebrew, Thamudic, Arabic and Greek. There is an estimate of 10,000 (2,000 plus documented) Nabatean rock inscriptions in Sinai Peninsula (1st century CE). Sawalha (14th century CE) and other tribes inhabit the vicinity. (Source: A. Shams, Sinai Peninsula Research, 2018)
Signed and numbered (No. 172) on glass plate.
Published in: Sinai and Palestine / Francis Frith. London : William Mackenzie, [1862?, pl. 5].