MOSAIC MAP OF ST.GEORGE'S GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH OF MADABA

The MOSAIC MAP of the Biblical  Lands unearthed in 1884 and preserved in the St. George's Greek Orthodox Church in Madaba which was rebuilt in 1897, has a special place amongst the artistic and cultural treasures of Jordan.
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The work is by unknown mosaicist who worked in Madaba towards the middle of the Sixth Century AD.It is the oldest preserved and most detailed  ancient map of the lands extending east and west of the River Jordan;from Libanon to Eygpt, from the desert to the Mediterranean.
The vignette of the Holy City of Jerusalem , rightly appears at the centre and heart of this world. The map was an artistic and interpretative expression. The intention of the mosaicist was to depict the Holy Land, with Jerusalem as its heart with special focus on churches, and to provide guidance to the pilgrims. The city was depicted by the moasaicist,well-fortified and enclosed within its walls. The gates and buildings develop around its two main columned streets wich is dominated by the Holy Sepulchre complex.
The Map is a true geographic map of Palestine,Jordan,Lebanon,Sinai and Egypt. All other maps which have survived from antiquity can only be classified as sketches by comparison. The Map was first discovered and valued not by professional scholars but by the masons and workers who, in 1884 were removing the debris in order to build the new Greek-Orthodox church on the ruins of a Byzantine churh in the northern part of Madaba.
The fame of the Madaba Map was more than merited even though only one-third of the original masaic has survived. The depiction of the territory is rendered with such pictorial realism that it is easily recognised. The pattern moves around the central axes formed by the River Jordan and the Dead Sea basin with the mountaneous plateau to the east of the sea. 
The map reaches its pictorial figurative apex with the depiction of Jerosalem. It is the ideal center of the whole composition,with a clear theological symbolism making the city the center and heart of the whole  world. The almost 150 location names wich accopany the localities depicted in the Bible,makes the map a historic document of primary importance for historic-biblical geography.




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