Madaba Mosaic Map

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When taking a tour of Jordan, you can be sure you'll be taken to Petra , Jerash, Mount Nebo, Madaba, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea. Those that wish to focus on the religious aspects will have Mount Nebo, Madaba, Bethany on the Jordan and various churches front of mind and it's in Madaba that you'll find the oldest and perhaps most religiously significant mosaic residing at the Church of Saint George, a Greek Orthodox Church built in 1896 over the ruins of a 6th century A.D. Byzantine Church, where the map was unearthed, now known colloquially as the "Church of the Map."



Madaba (an Aramaic name that means "Land of water and fruit") first mentioned in Moabite King Mesha's standing stone slab dated 850 B.C. retains its name from the time of the Old Testament as one of the Moabite cities. You know how it's not uncommon for travellers to go out of their way to stop at a Greek Orthodox Church? People even take a very specific cruise to Alaska just to stop at the Church in Sitka.



But there's a special reason to go to the Greek Orthodox Church in Madaba, Jordan: the Byzantine Mosaic map, the oldest map of the Holy Land. Go after lunch at Haret Jdoudna , an easy walk to the Church of Saint George. Purchase tickets and review the map in the courtyard before entering the church and spend time taking photos and communing with this masterpiece.



Pro Tip: Snap a shot of the courtyard map with your mobile phone so you know what you're looking at on the original map.

Mosaic is an art medium that creates images through the assembly of coloured stone, ivory, glass, shells, and other materials. It reaches back 4,000 years to a temple discovered in Mesopotamia and, developed independently, to 250 A.D. in the Mayan civilization.



It is believed this map originally covered a surface area of 5.6 x 15.7 square meters with only a quarter of the original map surviving today in good condition. The map depicts the Holy Land, surrounding villages and cities, Palestine, the Nile Delta in Egypt, and Jordan as well as the Dead Sea and the Jordan River. Created before the invention of modern mapping methods, 157 towns and villages are named and referenced between 542 and 570 AD.

This pilgrim's guide to the Holy Land shows Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, Jericho, Jacob's Well (the one Joseph of the Technicolor Dreamcoat was down), the Mediterranean Sea, Mount Sinai, the Nile Delta, Karak, St. Lot's Monastery, and Hebron. As you compare the version from the outside to the one on the floor inside, different items are likely to strike you. The fish turning from the Dead Sea, perhaps, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and David's Citadel.



It certainly provides a live history moment for those that wish to look at where the people from Bible stories actually lived and died and offers a deeper meaning to travelling in this part of the world.

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