Monastery Highlights:
The Basilica
Chapel of the Burning Bush
Charnel House
The Fountain of Moses
Justinian's Wall
The Library & Gallery of Icons
The Mosque
Justinian's Wall
In 527 A.D., the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the construction of two of the monastery's defining features, the wall and the basilica. The imposing wall was meant to defend the inhabitants of the monastery from the local bedouin tribes, and it reaches up to 9 ft in thickness and sixty ft in height. In 1801, another emperor, Napoleon, ordered their restoration.