St. Catherine's Monastery

"In the garden is the small cemetery with the Chapel of St. Tryphon and the Charnel House. The scantiness of earth does not permit permanent graves, so the monks buried in the cemetery are later exhumed and their bones placed in the ossuary. The remains of archbishops are kept in special niches. The Charnel House also serves a spiritual purpose. The site of the piled bones makes both monks and visitors meditate on life and death, on the vanity of human and earthly matters."(John Watson)

Founded in the 6th Century A.D., St. Katherine's is located at the base of Mt. Sinai.