Other features at Serabit confirm the non-Egyptian character of the cult of Sopd. Thus, on the northern approach to the temple stood a stone tank measuring 54 by 32 inches, with a hollow of 37 by 17 inches. Inside the temple area, in one of the courts which were built in the Eighteenth Dynasty, stood a circular tank, 31 inches across with a hollow of 25 inches, and another rectangular tank, 44 by 30 inches stood in the same court, and a further rectangular tank in the hall on the approach to the lower cave. The disposition of these tanks was such that the worshipper who approached the temple from the north, passed the tank outside and the various other tanks on his way to the lesser cave. The use of tanks outside and inside the temple, is foreign to Egypt. They are in keeping with the _apsu_ or stone tank of the Babylonian temple; and with the regulations of Moses regarding the laver that stood between the entrance to the temple and the altar (Exod. xxx. 18). In Jerusalem in the temple of Solomon was a “molten sea” that was round about, and there were ten lavers of brass, five on the right and five on the left side of the house. (1 Kings vii. 23, 38, 39). A similar arrangement prevails to this day in the Arab mosque. Outside stands the well or place for legal washings _ghusl_, and inside is the circular tank for ablution _wazur_.[41] The tanks at Serabit were therefore connected with the cult of Sopd, and their presence confirms the Semitic character of the place. CHAPTER IV THE EGYPTIANS IN SINAI I. THE monuments which the Egyptians erected in Sinai are evidence of their continued connection with the place. These were examined and studied in the winter of 1906.[42] They comprised many monuments which were carved in the living rock, and were found in the Wadi Maghara, the Wadi Nasb and at Serabit. At Serabit, moreover, there were found numerous offerings consisting of statuettes, vases, pottery, and other objects which were brought from Egypt to the sanctuary. Outside this sanctuary the Egyptians set up steles near the holy caves and on the neighbouring hillside, and they built chambers and porticoes inside the temenos, and covered these with scenes and inscriptions. Thus the buildings outside the caves went on increasing till the place assumed the appearance of a vast temple. The baboon figure which was discovered in the temple of Serabit, and the turquoise that was found in early graves in Egypt, show that the Egyptians came to the peninsula in pre-dynastic days. The beginning of dynastic history in Egypt was dated by Prof. Breasted (1909) to about B.C. 3400,[43] and by Prof. Petrie (1914) to about B.C. 5500. Scholars are more and more inclining to accept the earlier date.