The Mosaics of Madaba

Madaba is a typically hectic Arab town. The streets are crowded with shops selling everything from traditional Arab cloth to spare car parts to the latest Barbie. The air is filled with the smell of freshly baked bread and the relentless exhaust of cars that have should have been out of commission years ago. This little town boasts some of the best Byzantine mosaics in the Middle East. 

The most famous of the lot is the mosaic map in St. George’s church.  Created in 560 CE, the map originally showed all of the holy sites from Lebanon to Egypt.  Though it is a fascinating map, it is much smaller than we had hoped.  We were disappointed that it was difficult to make out many of the details of the map. Lubos was disappointed that it was in Greek.

From there we went to the “Archaeological Park.”  This is a bit of a misnomer.  It was more like the Archaeological Used Car Park. A rather disinterested man made an insignificant tear in our tickets, and then went back to smoking while resting his feet on the counter – humming out of tune to the latest Arab pop. The mosaics were spectacular – but information was rather dodgy, and the huge aluminum tarpaulins sounded like huge birds flapping in the wind. But the mosaics were lovely – and Lubos and I enjoyed taking in all the color and festivity of the Byzantine era before hopping back in the car and driving at lightening speed for Karak.