This true story pays tribute to Katherine of Alexandria, otherwise known as 'Jabal Ekatherina', whose libraries (which she had opened for the public) were destroyed by Emperor Maxentius, and who was subsequently beheaded following her torture on a wheel of spikes in 329AD.

Katherine is probably best known for the 'Katherine Wheel' firework (also referred to as the 'Pin Wheel') which symbolises the instrument of torture designed to break her. More importantly, she was the first woman of position to publicly denounce Rome's false gods and her eloquent arguments with fifty of Rome's finest scholars in an open court in Alexandria captured the spirits of ordinary people around the world.

It was Katherine's belief in the freedom of faith that led to the eventual collapse of religious persecution under the Romans.

Of the 1200 buildings named after her, the most celebrated is the Monastery of St. Katherine, on the slopes of Mount Sinai, in Egypt. Keeping true to her beliefs, the monastery welcomes all denominations to enter into prayer.

Even as her libraries were being burned prior to her execution, Katherine gave a clear indication that some of her words would survive and had been hidden for future generations. Now, after 1,700 years, a diary (or little book) dating back to 329 AD and written by 'Jabal Ekatherina' has been discovered.

Words from Katherine's diary. Worldwide copyright 1980 CWF Ltd.

"Though my libraries are now destroyed the little book will survive. Future leaders will know that without my words, they cannot hold all of the world's wisdom within fractions of pages."

Jabal Ekatherina

Katherine's reference to "fractions of pages" seems to indicate that fragments of ancient scrolls which have been found and pieced together over the centuries, fall far short of telling the whole story.

The diary clearly states that Katherine and Constantine (who was invested in York, England) had known and been devoted to each other since childhood, but that at the age of 12, Katherine had been abducted by Maxentius, who sought her as a future bride. Constantine, then aged fifteen, did not know where Katherine had been taken.

Katherine rejected Maxentius, holding fast her belief that Constantine might one day find her. We now know that Maxentius, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, began to torture Katherine.

When Constantine finally became Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, he received word of Katherine's whereabouts and her torture at the hands of Maxentius. He led his army from York to Alexandria, in a desperate bid to save her. For the first time in Rome's history, its Eastern and Western Empires would go to war against each other.