[3] During Egypt’s Pharaonic Era (3200-323 BCE), although Saint Catherine was not yet established as a city, the area was part of the Egyptian Empire in the province of "Deshret Reithu."

Well-preserved ruins of mines and temples are found not far from Saint Catherine at Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi Mukattab, the Valley of Inscription.

It has a high school, a hospital, a police and fire brigade, hotels, a post office, a telephone center, and a bank.

The township's oldest settlement was in Wadi El Sybaiya, east of the city's monastery, where descendants of Roman soldiers, the Jebeliya, were accommodated.

Many of the nomadic Bedouins moved to small settlements around the city's monastery, which collectively make up Saint Catherine Town.

Saint Catherine receives infrequent snowfalls during December, January, and February, however, snow has also occurred in late autumn and early spring.

Feral donkeys in the mountains have migrated to the region and lower-lying areas (reportedly as far as El Tur) in the winter and return to graze during the summer.

One of the principal goals of the Protectorate is to preserve the biodiversity of the fragile ecosystem, with an emphasis on the Nubian ibex and the wild medicinal and aromatic plants.

The St. Katherine Protectorate is a major job provider in the area, although the number of local Bedouins employed has fallen sharply since the initial European Union support ended.

Contrary to other Bedouin tribes, the Jebeliya have always practiced agriculture and are expert gardeners, which is evident in the wadis around Saint Catherine.

[citation needed] Water is often found at higher elevations, either in natural springs or in wells made at dykes called Jidda.

Water runs, sometimes for miles, in narrow conduits made of flat rocks which are still visible, but today gardens rely on plastic pipes (Khartoum).

[citation needed] Bedouin houses are small, simple stone structures with cane roofing, either incorporated into the garden wall or standing alone a bit further up from the wadi floor, away from the devastating flash floods that sweep through after occasional heavy rains.

[citation needed] Smaller rock shelters and store rooms are constructed under boulders and in walled-up caves and are found throughout the mountainous area.

[citation needed] Ancient leopard traps can be seen in many places, either under boulders such as in Wadi Talaa, or standing alone as on the top of Abu Geefa.

A goat was placed inside as bait, and when the trap was tripped by a leopard, a large rock fell to block the entrance.

3,031 (75.1%) of Saint Catherine's population is formed of Jebeliya Bedouins, while the rest are Egyptians, Greeks, Russians and western Europeans.

The palace was never finished, as he died before it was completed, but the massive 2-metre-thick (6.6 ft) walls made of granite blocks and granite-sand bricks stand firmly.

He had "a lasting distrust of foreigners, strongly opposed many of the Western-inspired changes introduced by his father Mohammed Ali Pasha, and he is remembered as a traditionalist and reactionary who undid many of his grandfather's modernizing reforms.

Although Abbas is "best remembered for the emancipation of the fellaheen and the construction of the Cairo-Alexandria railway line in 1851", he "had a significant influence on the immediate area around Saint Catherine.

Besides the construction of the mountain-top palace, he commissioned the building of the camel path up to Mount Sinai and the Askar barracks on the way to the monastery, which now lies in ruins."

There are hundreds of ruins of Byzantine monasteries, churches, and monastic settlements in the area, some of them not much more than a pile of rocks, and others difficult to distinguish from Bedouin buildings, but there are also several very well-preserved ones.

There is a mass of names (singular of nawamis) near the Oasis of Ain Hudra, as well as a rock with pharaonic inscriptions near the main road to Dahab, which can be found with the help of a guide.

The display was made by Belgian artist Jean Verame in 1980–1981, who painted many of the boulders over an area of around 15 km2 (5.8 sq mi) and a hill blue.

While the struggle to limit access and visiting hours has done little to preserve the monastery, it has also provided a measure of protection during political turbulence.

Monks relate that forty Christian soldiers from the Roman Army in the 3rd century were commanded to worship pagan gods.

Coming from Upper Egypt, he was said to have lived for seventy years in the rock shelter at the northern end of the garden, until he died in AD 390.

The Monastery of Cosmas and Damianos in Wadi Talaa is named after the martyred brothers who were doctors and treated locals for free in the 3rd century AD.

The Monastery of Wadi Feiran, with its chapel dedicated to Prophet Moses, is some 60 kilometres (37 mi) before reaching Saint Catherine.

The Monastery of El Tur was built by Emperor Justinian in the important port city, which was an early Christian center from the 3rd century AD.