Icon painting and workshops between 11th to 13th centuries in the Monastery of St. Catherine at Sinai

Monastic formations in the Christian faith are based on the ascetic life idea that emerged in Egypt in the early 4th century. The initiators of this hermit life movement were ascetics who chose to live alone in desolate places, isolated from society, to freely practice their worship. The pilgrimage movement that started in the 4th century became more and more popular with the establishment of safe pilgrimage routes. Along with the Muslim conquests in the 7th century, the visitors decreased causing to a 350-year long isolation period. Later, with the moderate Muslim leaders and the appropriate ground brought by the Crusades (1099-1270), the pilgrimage to the area increased again. Monastery of St. Catherine constitutes the main theme of the thesis. The distant location of the monastery, which was established on the slopes of Mount Sinai, has made transportation difficult, and actually made it more protected for centuries. Until the 20th century, the monastery could still be reached by camel caravans. The monastery was able to open its doors to modern travelers in the 1930s and to scientific studies only in the 1950s. Constructed of stone, mortar and wooden materials, the St. Catherine Monastery building community is the oldest monastery in the world that has been standing for fifteen centuries and has survived to the present day. In the center of the monastery is the Basilica built during the reign of Iustinianos (527-565). Gifts and votives have been donated by the noble families and visitors to the monastery for centuries. Monastery monks produced manuscripts and icons to show their loyalty and gratitude to this sacred place. These donations and icons, manuscripts, engravings, metal works, carvings, embroidery and weavings produced in the monastery create a unique and unmatched collection for Christian art. Today, monastery provides a wide resource for art historians with its architecture, old library and icon collection. Thanks to dry and stable climatic conditions, an uninterrupted history of fifteen hundred years, and the devoted attitudes of monastic monks, most of the icons that come from the Byzantine Period have been preserved in the St. Catherine Monastery. Although the icons painted on wooden panels with the early period (6th-7th century) encaustic technique are considered as the most remarkable works, icons produced between the 11th-13th. Centuries also constitute an important group in terms of both quantity and quality. Key words: Byzantine, Egypt, Sinai, St. Catherine, Monastery, Painting, Icon