the main region where mining of turquoise was carried out in Ancient Egypt, it was called Biau (the "Mining Country") and Khetiu Mafkat ("Ladders of Turquoise") by the ancient Egyptians. "Sinai" a modern Christian name Roland de Vaux writes that the peninsula acquired the name Sinai in modern times due to the Christian assumption that a mountain near Saint Catherine's Monastery is the Biblical Mount Sinai. "Sinai": ancient religious roots? This assumption is contested (see Biblical Mount Sinai for a fuller discussion). The name Sinai (, ) may have been derived from the ancient Mesopotamian moon-god Sin. The moon-deity Sin is associated with the area, and the ancient Egyptian moon-god Thoth is also associated with Sin and his worship was widespread throughout the south tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The Jewish Encyclopedia(1901-0906) quotes a Rabbinic source, the 8th or 9th-century Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer, which derives the name from the biblical Hebrew word seneh (), a word only known from two occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, in both cases referring to the burning bush. Rabbi Eliezer opines that Mount Horeb only received the name Sinai after God appeared to Moses in the shape of a burning bush. Arabic name Its modern Arabic name is (Egyptian Arabic ; ). The modern Arabic is an adoption of the Biblical name; the 19th-century Arabic designation of Sinai was Jebel el-Tūr, and the name of the mountain is derived from the town of El Tor (formerly called "Tur Sinai"), whose name comes from the Arabic term for the mountain where the prophet Moses received the Tablets of the Law from God, thus this mountain is designated as "Jabal Aṭ-Ṭūr (Arabic: جبل الطّور)", and the town is also the capital of the South Sinai Governorate of Egypt. As another Arabic word for "mass of very high land going up to a peak - mountain" is "Ṭūr". In addition to its formal name, Egyptians also refer to it as ( 'the land of turquoise'). The ancient Egyptians called it t3 mfk3.t, or 'land of turquoise' (see above). English pronunciation The English name came from Latin, ultimately from Hebrew סִינַי‎, pronounced /siˈnái/ (, in English phonetic spelling). In English, the name is now usually pronounced . An alternative, now dated pronunciation in English was . Geography Sinai is triangular in shape, with its northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and its southwest and southeast shores on