From Tripoli through Cyprus to Sinai (1)

A Journey of Eastern Christians (1498–1500) in MS Vatican, BAV, Syr. 647

It is 15 October 1498, and we are at the Monastery of St. James the Persian near Tripoli. This is no ordinary day in the monastery. An anonymous group of its residents, most likely monks or clergy, are preparing for a long journey, one that will take at least eighteen months and lead them across the eastern Mediterranean, through Cyprus and Egypt, to their destination: Mount Sinai.

The details of this long journey to Mount Sinai survive on a single folio (119rv) preserved within Manuscript Vatican, BAV, Syr. 647. In this post and the next, we will trace and analyze the route of these travellers.

The Fragment Behind the Journey

In the early 1990s, Frédéric Rilliet identified an uncatalogued manuscript in the Vatican Library consisting of 178 folios of Syriac fragments.¹ Through the numerous colophons and endowment notes preserved on these leaves, he recognised that the fragments originated from the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt. The wide chronological range of these notes makes clear that the collection derives from different parent manuscripts.

The fragments are now preserved together in the Vatican Library under the shelf mark MS Vatican, BAV, Syr. 647. How these leaves became detached from their original manuscripts and eventually reached the Vatican is itself an intriguing story, though one beyond the scope of this post.² Several of the parent manuscripts still survive today in St. Catherine’s Monastery and in collections elsewhere, including Sinai Syriac 64, Sinai New Finds 4 and 31, and London, British Library Or. 5020.³

The first stage of the journey, MS Vatican, BAV, Syr. 647, f. 119v. © Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Image with permission from the Vatican Library

One of these fragments constitutes folios 117-120, and has the short Arabic itinerary written by an anonymous group of Eastern Christian travellers around the end of the fifteenth century. The itinerary preserved on folio 119rv falls into two stages: first, a journey from a monastery near Tripoli through Cyprus and onward to Damietta; second, a journey across Egypt to St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai. This post examines the first stage of the journey, while the next will explore the second stage.

The account is written in two different hands. The verso side records the earlier stages of the journey, beginning at the Monastery of St. James the Persian and continuing through Cyprus to Egypt. The recto focuses on the final stage from Cairo to Sinai. The fragment which includes the account preserves the final leaves of a manuscript, much of which is now blank. Its contents are:

f. 117r: blank
ff. 117v–118r: an anonymous Syriac liturgical text

f. 118v: blank, with an illegible short Greek note

f. 119rv: the Arabic itinerary

f. 120r: a Greek liturgical note written in Arabic script

f. 120v: blank

These texts appear to be later additions rather than part of the manuscript’s original contents. Identifying the parent manuscript is therefore difficult, although the fragment most likely belonged to a Syriac codex, since all the fragments gathered in Vatican, BAV, Syr. 647 are Syriac.

Edition of the Text (f. 119v)

بسم الله الحي الأزلي

كان الطلوع من دير ماري يعقوب المقطع

خامس شهر تشرين الاول سنة سبعة الاف

وسبع سنين للعالم وكان المسير الى ترابلس

وطال المقام في الكوره مده عشرة اشهر ومن

ترابلس سرنا في البحر الى المغاوصه ومن المغاوصه

الى الملحاه على البر ركاب خيل ومن الملحأ الى

النمسون ومنه الى السكبيه ومنه الى الباف في

البحر وقمنا في الباف مدة ثمانيه ايام ومنه الى ظمياط

وكان المقام هناك مدة شهرين ونصف ومن

انحدرنا إلى القاهرة وكان المقام في القاهرة

شهرين ومن القاهرة انحدرنا الى الدير المقدس

وكان الحظور الدير المقدس اول يوم في

شباط المبارك والسلام على

كل من يقرا هذه الصطر الحقيرة

⁴كل من يقرا هذه الحرف يدعي له بالغفران

The Journey to and through Cyprus

According to the account, the journey began at the Monastery of St. James the Persian. Three monasteries in the region bore this name: a Syriac Catholic monastery in Qaraqosh in Iraq, a Greek Catholic monastery near Qārah north of Damascus, and a Greek Orthodox monastery near Tripoli in present-day Lebanon. The two monasteries later became Catholic, but they would not yet have belonged to this tradition at the end of the fifteenth century. However, since the travellers first walked to Tripoli and the neighbouring district of al-Kūrah—located only a few kilometres from the Lebanese monastery—the monastery near Tripoli is the most plausible point of departure.

The account was written by two different hands, both using the pronoun “we,” which suggests that the authors themselves belonged to the travelling group. Because the journey began at a monastery, the travellers were most likely monks or clergy. Beyond this, however, the text remains silent. No names are given, no purpose for the journey is stated, and even the final destination remains uncertain. Although the travellers report reaching St. Catherine’s Monastery, the folio on which they wrote may simply have been left behind there while they themselves continued onward.

The verso account (f. 119v) states that the group departed from the Monastery of St. James on 5 Tishrīn I in the year 7007 of the creation era, corresponding to Friday, 14 October 1498 CE. They travelled on foot to Tripoli and remained in al-Kūrah for ten months, perhaps preparing logistically for the long journey ahead.

Identifying some of the place names recorded in the itinerary is not always straightforward, since the Arabic forms do not consistently correspond to modern toponyms, while some locations may no longer be identifiable. The travellers’ route through Cyprus began at Famagusta (al-Māghūṣah), reached by sea from Tripoli. From there they continued overland on horseback, moving westward roughly parallel to the island’s southern coast. Their next stop was a place they call al-Malḥā or al-Milḥā, a name closely related to the Arabic word for “salt.” The most plausible identification is the Larnaca Salt Lakes southwest of modern Larnaca.

One possible alternative is Nicosia. During his travels in the eastern Mediterranean, the fifteenth-century Spanish traveller Pedro Tafur followed a similar route from Famagusta to Nicosia. This city was associated in some traditions with the idea of a “White City.” Yet this identification seems unlikely. Medieval Arabic geographical sources, including al-Idrīsī’s Nuzhat al-Mushtāq and al-Quṭayʿī’s Marāṣid al-Iṭṭilāʿ, refer to Nicosia as Afqūsīyah or Lafqusīyah rather than al-Malḥā.⁵ Moreover, Nicosia lies inland, whereas the travellers’ route appears to follow the southern coastline. For these reasons, Larnaca remains the stronger candidate.

Map of the Journey from Tripoli to Damietta through Cyprus. This map was constructed by Dr. Iman M. Abd al-Hakim, Egyptian General Survey Authority, and Dr. Atef Moatamed, Cairo University. I am indebted for their kindness and precious help.

From there the group travelled to Limassol (al-Namsūn), then to the nearby village of Episkopi (al-Iskabiyah). According to the account, they subsequently sailed to Paphos (al-Bāf), their final stop in Cyprus. Although the nearby village of Yeroskipou resembles the Arabic form al-Iskabiyah, the travellers specifically describe a sea trip from that location to Paphos, which better fits Episkopi near Limassol. The group remained in Paphos for eight days before continuing toward Egypt across the Mediterranean.

The account of f.119v concludes only briefly: after arriving in Damietta, the travellers stayed in Cairo for two months before proceeding to Mount Sinai, where they arrived at the beginning of February. Yet the chronology suggests that this first stage of the journey alone lasted almost a year. Ten months were spent in al-Kūrah, followed by travel through Cyprus and onward to Egypt. Why, then, did the travellers cross nearly the entire island before departing from Paphos rather than sailing directly to Egypt from Famagusta or Larnaca?

Part of the answer may lie in the realities of Mediterranean travel at the time. Maritime routes were often shaped by weather conditions, commercial needs, and the availability of ships rather than by direct distance alone. Several contemporary travellers describe similar detours and changing routes. Around 1497, Arnold von Harff was forced by bad weather to divert from the route between Crete and Alexandria and shelter temporarily in Rhodes.⁶ In 1587, Hans Ludwig von Lichtenstein recorded that adverse weather pushed his ship toward Cyprus rather than directly to Damietta.⁷ Likewise, the French traveller Jean Thenaud (1633-1667) journeyed from Damietta to Episkopi before crossing the bay to Paphos, closely resembling the route described in our itinerary.⁸ Even later in the 18th century,Ḥannā Diyāb (1688-after 1766) travelled to Paphos with Paul Lucas (1664-1737) to obtain commodities before continuing to Alexandria via Limassol.⁹ These accounts suggest that travel between Tripoli, Cyprus, and Egypt followed flexible and well-established maritime corridors rather than a single fixed route.

Another factor may have been the close relationship between Eastern Christian communities and Cyprus during this period. Waves of migration caused by Mongol invasions and later Mamluk pressures led many Eastern Christians of different denominations to settle on the island. Over time they established churches, monasteries, and commercial networks across Cyprus.¹⁰ The travellers’ extended movement through several Cypriot towns may therefore reflect not only practical travel considerations, but also existing religious and social connections on the island.

One difficulty in reconstructing this wider context is the limited surviving evidence for Cyprus in the late fifteenth century. The major Cypriot chronicles largely end by the middle of that century, leaving the transitional period between Mamluk and Ottoman dominance in the eastern Mediterranean comparatively poorly documented. As a result, the relationship between Eastern Christian communities and Cyprus during precisely the period of this journey remains only partially understood.¹¹

Reading this brief itinerary, one is struck by how little the travellers chose to record. Their account offers almost no descriptions, emotions, or explanations—only the principal places and dates that marked their route across the eastern Mediterranean. Perhaps the text served simply as a practical record of the journey, a personal aide-mémoire, or a note left behind for future readers. Yet these few hurried lines, preserved by chance on a detached manuscript folio, now provide a rare glimpse into the mobility of Eastern Christian communities at the close of the fifteenth century. In the next post, the travellers leave the Mediterranean coast behind and continue their journey from Cairo into the Sinai desert.

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1. Frédéric Rilliet “La Bibliothèque de Ste-Catherine du Sinaï et ses membra disiecta: nouveaux fragments syriaques à la Bibliothèque vaticane“ VI Symposium Syriacum 1992, ed. René Lavenant. Rome: Pontificio Institute Orientale, 1994, 409-418. ↩︎
2. Peter Tarras dedicated his blog Membra Dispersa Sinaitica to the history of detachment and dispersion of the Sinai manuscripts all over the world. See some examples of membra disicta of the parchment fragments of MS Vatican, BAV, Syr. 647 in P. Gehin, les manuscrits syriaques de parchemin du Sinaï et leurs membra disjecta (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 25-26. ↩︎
3. I appreciate the help of my colleague Natalia Smelova who guided me to these manuscripts. ↩︎
4. This last line is written in different hand. ↩︎
5. al-Idrīsī, Nuzhat al-Mushtāq, vol. 2, Beirut: ʻĀlam al-Kutub, 1989, 644; al-Quṭayʻī, Marāṣid al-Iṭṭilāʻ, Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1992, 101. ↩︎
6. The Pilgrimage of von Harff, 83-92, 140. ↩︎
7. von Lichtenstein, Voyages en Egypte, 31. ↩︎
8. Thenaud, Voyages en Egypte, 216. ↩︎
9. Diyāb, Kitāb al-Siyāḥah, vol. 1, 52-55. ↩︎
10. Laura Nalletto, “Ethnic groups, cross-social and cross-cultural contacts on fifteenth-century Cyprus,” in Mediterranean historical review 10 (1995), 35-48; Nicholas Coureas, “The Coptic Présence in Cyprus during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries”, in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk, ed. U. Vermeulen and K. D’hulster, Leuven: Peeters, 2007, 439–50. ↩︎
11. Nicholas Coureas, and Edbury P., trans., The Chronicle of Amadi translated from the Italian, Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 2015; R.M. Dawkins ed. and trans. Leontios Makhairas, Recital concerning the Sweet Land of Cyprus entitled ‘Chronicle’. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932. ↩︎

Keywords: Christian Arabic manuscripts, Cyprus, East Mediterranean, St. James the Persian’s Monastery, Travel of Eastern Christians, Tripoli, St. Catherine’s Monastery.

Arabic Translation of this post is here

Suggested Citation: Vevian Zaki (18 May 2026). ” From Tripoli through Cyprus to Sinai: A Journey of Eastern Christians (1498–1500) in MS Vatican, BAV, Syr. 647” Margins Speak Blog (https://vevianzaki.com/from-tripoli-through-cyprus-to-sinai/).