The triangular landmass which connects Africa to Eurasia, bounded on the east by the Gulf of Aqaba, on the west by the Gulf of Suez and, in ancient times, a swampy area known as the "sea of reeds", and to the north by the Mediterranean. Until the 1800's merchants wishing to travel between the Mediterranean to the Red Seas would have to cross overland, usually at Suez. It was a major center of copper mining in ancient times and, as the land bridge between Asia and Africa, the site of several vital trade routes. In addition to being the site of the Biblical Mount Sinai, the Sinai peninsula was also an early center of Christian monasticism- the Codex Siniaticus, the oldest manuscript of the New Testament, was unearthed there in 1844.