Monastery of the Forty Martyrs

(Local Name: Wadi el-Leja - Deir el-Arbain) Some 1.5mi/2km south of the Stone of Moses is the Deir el-Arbain, the Monastery of the Forty Martyrs (killed by the Saracens). It is an unpretentious building with a large garden; in the rocky upper part of which is a spring, and near this a cave in which St Onuphrius is said to have lived as a hermit. The monastery was abandoned in the 17th C., but is still occasionally occupied by a few monks.