St Stephen's mosaic
Towns of the Holy Land and the Delta.
Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Dosseman — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Carole Raddato — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Mohammad hajeer — CC BY-SA 4.0
A sprawling ancient town on the edge of the desert, listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2004; its old name was Kastron Mefaa. It began as a Roman military camp, and a Christian town grew up around it that lived on into the Umayyad and Abbasid periods, with sixteen churches. The highlight is the Church of St Stephen, under a protective roof, whose floor is one of the finest mosaics in the Middle East: a panel dated 785 AD framed by pictures of the towns of the Holy Land on both banks of the Jordan, among them Jerusalem, Nablus, Amman and Madaba, and of Nile Delta cities such as Alexandria, each with its Greek name, buildings and walls. In the centre are scenes of hunting, harvest and boats on a river. About one and a half kilometres north stands a lone stone tower 14 metres tall, with no stair and no door at the top; a stylite hermit most likely lived in its upper room, apart from the world, and it is the only tower of its kind to survive in this state in the region. The site is usually visited from Madaba and goes well with a tour of the mosaics in Madaba's churches.
Towns of the Holy Land and the Delta.
14 metres, alone on the plain.
Roman camp and town of churches.
About 30 km south-east of Madaba
The mosaic floor of the Church of St Stephen, dated 785, with its pictures of towns of the Holy Land and the Nile Delta, and the stylite tower north of the site.
By car, about half an hour from Madaba and an hour from Amman; there is no regular public transport.