From The Holy Mountain – A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (English, Paperback, Dalrymple William)

In 587 A.D., two monks, Friar John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist, begin a journey across the entire Byzantine world. From the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand-crested dunes of Egypt, they travel collecting the tales of the stylites and the desert dwellers. They have to hurry, for they have little time left to save precious relics and manuscripts from obscure monasteries, from present-day Turkey to Egypt. They walked under the shadow of the impending flag of Islam which would take over most of the empire in the years to come. William Dalrymple retraces their journey through the writings they left behind, etching into history a tale fit to become an evensong for a perishing civilization.