The city of Madaba in Jordan is located about 30 km from Amman (the capital city). Madaba is widely known as the City of Mosaic. The first mosaics apparently were discovered purely by chance during the building of permanent housings using squared-up stones from the old monuments. Once the people were made aware of the importance of these mosaics they made sure to take care and preserve all the mosaics that came to light.
Madaba is home to the famous 6th century Mosaic Map of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the Madaba Mosaic Map. It’s made out of two million pieces of vividly coloured local stone that depicts hills and valleys, villages and towns as far as the Nile Delta. It covers the floor of the Greek Orthodox Church of St George, just northwest of the city centre. We visited the church right after our scrumptious lunch at Haret Jdoudna in Madaba. (Side note: Please go and enjoy some meals in this restaurant if you happen to be in the area. They serve great meal and the place is really unique.)
St George church, which was built in 1896 AD, is not a very big church, but the amount of mosaics inside was quite impressive. The Mosaic Map was in the middle of the main floor of the church. The map was originally around 15.6 X 6m big, but only about a quarter of that size is preserved.
As it is with most of the other places of worships I’ve been to, the church of st George is adorned by many beautiful ornaments and decorations, which are intricate, old and very special.
Street view look.
