Madaba

Madaba is one of Jordan's most singular destinations: a small town of 70,000 inhabitants, 30 kilometres south-west of Amman on the plateau overlooking the Jordan Valley, whose identity is deeply Christian — a rarity in the Middle East — and whose worldwide fame rests on an exceptional Byzantine artwork. In the nave of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint George, rebuilt in 1896, sleeps a 6th-century floor mosaic that depicts the Holy Land with a degree of topographic precision unmatched for its time — it is the oldest known cartographic map of Jerusalem in the world. Accidentally discovered during the new church excavations, restored by Italian archaeologists in the 1960s, it remains in situ, at the feet of the faithful: going to Madaba means walking around this fourteen-century-old map that shows Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, the Jordan, the Dead Sea, the Nile delta and more than a hundred holy sites identified with stunning accuracy.

But Madaba is not just a town with a mosaic. Nicknamed the town of mosaics, it preserves several other exceptional Byzantine works: the Hippolytus Mosaic at the Archaeological Park (high-quality mythological scenes), the Church of the Apostles mosaics (animals and personifications of Thalassa, the sea) and several others in the Regional Archaeological Museum. The town also hosts the Madaba Institute for Mosaic Art and Restoration, a unique school in the Middle East perpetuating this ancestral art. Just 10 kilometres away, Mount Nebo — the summit from which Moses is said to have contemplated the Promised Land according to biblical tradition before dying — offers one of the most moving panoramas in the Levant: on a clear day, you can see Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Mount of Olives and the Dead Sea shimmering 1,200 metres below. Madaba is best visited as a full-day trip from Amman, combined with Mount Nebo and a float in the Dead Sea — a triptych among the finest cultural and spiritual itineraries in the Middle East.