Madaba

The trip south from Amman along the 5,000-year-old King’s Highway is one of the most memorable journeys in the Holy Land, passing through a string of ancient sites. The first city you come upon is Madaba, “the City of Mosaics.”

Madaba’s chief attraction, in the contemporary Greek Orthodox Church of St. George, is a wonderfully vivid, 6th century Byzantine tine mosaic map showing Jerusalem and other holy sites.

With two million pieces of colored stone, and a full 25 x 5 meters in its original state -most of which can still be seen today - the map depicts hills and valleys, villages and towns, as far away as the Nile Delta. This masterpiece is unrivalled in Jordan, but there are literally dozens of other mosaics from the 5th through the 7th centuries, scattered throughout Madaba’s churches and homes.