Each file is built around the same scaffold: dated last-verified line at the top, hero photograph, a five-paragraph editorial introduction, an "On the ground" block with current ticket prices and Arabic checkpoint signage where relevant, a reading list with the published sources we drew from, and a public change log. The structure is uniform on purpose; it makes the differences in editorial quality between files visible.
The working Orthodox monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, in continuous use since the sixth century. Library access, icon gallery, the Burning Bush courtyard, the practical visit logistics from Cairo or Sharm.
ReadTwo routes up the mountain: the camel path (gradual switchback, 2.5 hours) and the Steps of Repentance (3,750 stone steps, 1.5 hours, harder). Current Bedouin guide arrangements, the conditions at the summit chapel.
ReadA narrow slot in layered sandstone north-west of Nuweiba. Three kilometres of canyon, reachable only by 4×4 from the highway, requires SCA protectorate ticket purchased at the Nuweiba office.
ReadA 130-metre submarine sinkhole in the fringing reef. Shallow snorkel rim and the Arch at 56m for technical divers. Includes the safety record and what the published hyperbaric data actually says.
ReadThe 30-kilometre strand of Bedouin-owned beachfront camps between Nuweiba and Taba. Verified camp shortlist, current per-night rates, the meal practicalities, the safe-water situation.
ReadThe 600-square-kilometre national protectorate with Egypt's largest mangrove stand, a small Bedouin fishing village, and the 1956 wreck of the Maria Schroeder on the reef. Access by 4×4 from the Sharm coastal highway.
ReadPractical guide to crossing in and out of Egypt at the Taba land border with Israel. Current visa procedure, fees, the practical timing for a same-day round trip from Eilat, the bus and shared taxi options to Cairo and Dahab.
ReadThe major coastal national park at the southern tip of the peninsula. Draft file released to Library and Field subscribers; public release planned for autumn 2026 after a second verification cycle.
Request previewThe seven public files are the front door. The resources below are why subscribers pay for the second month.
| Resource | Format | Tiers | Update cadence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dated field-notebook scans | Library, Field | On request, two working days | |
| Bilingual SCA Sinai bulletin translations | Reader (titles), Library/Field (full) | As issued by the inspectorate | |
| Verified Bedouin-operator shortlist | PDF, A4 single page | Library, Field | Six-monthly |
| Monastic-library application template | DOCX + PDF | Library, Field | Reviewed annually with the librarian |
| Printed quarterly Field Notebook | A5 print, 48pp | Field only | Mailed quarterly from Cairo |
| Tih Press Annual Digest | Print + PDF | All tiers (PDF); Field (print) | Once per year, December |
| Bibliographic search of the Sinai literature | All tiers on request, hourly | On demand |
Tih Press is primarily a publishing operation. The four services below are the only paid work we accept. Each is aligned with the editorial standard rather than scaled for volume.
You send a draft Sinai itinerary by email or through the contact form; an editor returns a one-page feasibility memo — drive times, current access conditions, sensible cuts, recommended order of visits. Delivered within 24 hours of receipt. €50 flat. No booking action taken on your behalf.
If you are considering a Sinai operator we do not list, we check the licence status, reach out to two previous customers we can identify, and write a one-page note. €130 per operator. We say bluntly if we would not personally use them.
Drafting and proof-reading of a formal application to consult the St Catherine library. Includes the bilingual cover letter (English + Greek) and the standing format the librarian expects. €180 per application. We do not guarantee acceptance — only that your application will meet the standard the library actually asks for.
Translation of an SCA Sinai inspectorate bulletin, a permit reply, or a local-press piece on the peninsula. €0.10 per source-language word, minimum order one A4 page. Mostly Arabic to English; English to Arabic accepted for short documents that need to be in the form the local office expects.
The clauses below come from the standing engagement letter and are not negotiable for individual orders. Institutional clients with framework agreements can agree variations in writing before the work begins.
The bibliographic search indexes everything published in print or in academic-press digital editions on the Sinai peninsula — monasteries, archaeology, protected areas, dive medicine — between January 2000 and the present. It is a flat index keyed by site, period, publication language and year. The point is that a serious subscriber can find every published reference to a given topic and decide for themselves what to trust.
The four core publication series we index in full are: Sinaitica, the Greek-language academic journal of St Catherine monastic studies; the monthly SCA Sinai inspectorate Arabic-language bulletins from 2010 onward; the South Sinai Nature Conservation Sector annual reports on the protected areas; and the published proceedings of the international Sinai conferences (the most recent at the German Archaeological Institute Cairo, 2024). Outside these, we index any peer-reviewed publication that names one of our covered sites; the index has approximately 1,180 entries at the date of this page.
What we deliberately do not include: travel-blog posts, content-marketing pages from dive operators, unsourced compilations, and online encyclopedias that themselves cite none of the above. The point of an academic-grade index is that everything in it can be verified at the holding library; including unverifiable material would defeat the purpose. We do, however, include the popular Egyptian-Arabic monthly Sahaba al-Sina for the period it was in print, because its access-conditions reportage from the Sinai interior was contemporaneous and is not otherwise preserved in English.
The most-used part of the index is the St Catherine concordance, which maps every published reference to a specific manuscript in the monastic library against its current shelfmark and against the academic literature that has commented on it. The concordance carries 414 entries pointing into the Sinaiticus, Sinai Arabic NF, and Sinai Greek NF series. A subscriber preparing a research-access application can pull the entire bibliography for their topic in a single search and walk into the application meeting prepared.
Beyond St Catherine we also index the marine biological literature on the Sinai reef system, including the standard Vine and Ormond monographs, the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association surveys of the Egyptian protected areas, and the relevant chapters of the standard PADI dive-site guidebooks insofar as they remain accurate at re-verification. The Dahab and Nabq files draw extensively from this material, and the bibliography lets a serious diving subscriber follow citations into the underlying ecology.
A small but operationally important slice of the index covers the Egypt–Israel border crossing literature: the published guidance from the Egyptian General Authority for Land Ports, the equivalent material from the Israel Population and Immigration Authority, and the small academic literature on cross-border tourism in the Gulf of Aqaba. The Taba border file draws on this, and the bibliography is what makes the file possible to keep current through changes in visa regulation.
Subscribers at Library and Field tiers can request a consolidated PDF of any concordance subset, delivered within two working days; Reader-tier subscribers can request individual entries on a one-off basis through the desk at no charge. The cumulative count of fulfilled requests since the policy was introduced in 2019 is 217, including 38 in the current calendar year. The bibliographic system is, in our subscribers' words, the single thing the desk does that nobody else in the Sinai-research space does — and the reason most people who subscribe stay past the first month.
The pricing page lays out the three subscription tiers. The contact page is the door for any of the four editorial services.