Madaba Map Church

About this place

An Orthodox church in the centre of Madaba whose floor holds the oldest known map of the Holy Land — a mosaic of the sixth century. The Madaba Map is not decoration but a geographical document: it was made to be read, and shows Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, the Jordan, the Nile delta, and towns and villages named in Greek. Jerusalem appears in detail with its walls, gates and main colonnaded street, and that detail was actually used in the twentieth century to verify archaeological locations in the Old City — the map proved itself correct by excavation. About a quarter of the original survives. The rest was lost over the centuries, but what remains holds the most important part. The church itself is comparatively modern, built in the late nineteenth century over a Byzantine one, and the map was found during that construction. The visit is short: the map is in the floor and takes ten minutes to see, but understanding it needs explanation — a guide adds a great deal here, because what you are looking at appears meaningless unless it is read to you. Madaba itself is the city of mosaics, with other churches with mosaic floors, a museum and a school teaching the craft; the whole town walks in two hours. It sits roughly halfway between Amman and Mount Nebo, and the three combine into a half-day.