Mosaic Map of the Middle East
Madaba, Jordan
October 31, 2008
Madaba, Jordan
October 31, 2008
On the floor of the unassuming Greek Orthodox Basilica of St George in the pleasant town of Madaba, lies a fascinating piece of cartographic history – a 16 x 5-metre ‘map’ of the Holy Land crafted from thousands of tiny tiles. No one’s sure who the artists were or what motivated the mosaic’s creation but it apparently can be dated fairly reliably to the 6th Century AD. The center of the map shows Jerusalem along with many of it’s better-known landmarks. Interestingly, the rough age period of the mosaic’s creation was partially derived based on the age of the sites depicted (and those not depicted). Radiating out from Jerusalem are illustrations and names (in Greek) of hundreds of surrounding cities and towns. Some are just named but others have quite detailed ‘street maps’ and pictorial highlights (such as the fish swimming in the Dead Sea and palm trees in Jericho).
Like most mosaics the colours are muted and limited which makes the artistry all the more dazzling. With just a handful of natural tiles the ‘cartographers’ created a map so useful that it was referenced only recently by archeologists to (accurately) pinpoint key excavation sites in the Holy Land.
However for someone like myself, who can’t read Greek and who has only a hazy idea of the geography involved, the easiest aspects to appreciate are the primitive illustrations and the occasional legible name. That’s in addition, of course, to the Raiders of the Lost Ark-esque appeal of a floor-map that surely must still hold the key to secret sites yet undiscovered.
