By Ravit Linn, Yotam Tepper, Guy Bar-Oz (2017), https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123878733

Archaeologists usually recover their treasures beneath the earth. Instead of digging beneath the earth, however, we were high above it on a four-story scaffold, exploring the half-dome of the apse of the Byzantine Church at Saint Catherine’s monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. But we felt as much like archaeologists as those who dig deep in the earth. For we too were recovering the past. We were reclaiming one of the world’s greatest Byzantine mosaics—from centuries of dirt, grime, varnish and even glue which had collected on its surface. Gradually, as the surface was painstakingly scraped with delicate dentists’ tools and then cleaned without chemicals, what had been dull, faint, discolored and often obscure emerged brilliant, clear and breathtaking, just as it must have looked more than 1400 years ago when artists and workmen created it at the command of Emperor Justinian I the Great (527–565).

On the half-dome of the apse was the great Transfiguration scene, as reported in Matthew 17-1–8, Mark 9-2–8 and Luke 9-28–35 (see pp. 26–27). In the center of the scene was Christ on Mount Tabor depicted within a divine aureole of light. Kneeling on either side of him were the disciples John and James, watching the transfigured Christ. Beneath him was Peter “heavy with sleep” (Luke 9-32); and standing beside him, as the Evangelists tell us, were the prophets, Elijah and Moses.

On the wall above the apse, on either side of two arched windows through which the brilliant desert light streamed, were two scenes from the Old Testament- Moses removing his sandals at the Burning Bush and Moses receiving the Law on Mount Sinai.

Read the rest of Saving the Mt. Sinai Mosaics, George H. Forsyth and Kurt Weitzmann, BAR 4:04, Nov-Dec 1978 at the Biblical Archaeology Society Library.