Madaba

An historic town on the Jordanian plateau south of Amman, known above all for a sixth-century Byzantine mosaic map of the Holy Land installed in the floor of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint George. The map, the oldest known cartographic representation of the Middle East, is rendered in coloured tesserae at considerable scale with Jerusalem and the Nile Delta identifiable. The surrounding area preserves additional Byzantine and Umayyad mosaic floors across numerous churches and the local archaeological museum. The town is commonly used as a base for visiting nearby Mount Nebo.