Madaba Tour

Madaba tour to visit the Church of the Map, Mount Nebo, and the Baptistery of Christ, and return to Amman for six hours.

Mount Nebo is steeped in religious significance as it is believed to be the place where Moses stood to view the Promised Land before his death. According to the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses died on Mount Nebo and was buried in Moab. In the 4th century, a small monastery was built by Egyptian monks on the mountain peak in memory of Moses, now called Memorial Church of Moses. After its reconstruction in the 5th century, the Memorial Church was turned into a basilica and still stands on the zenith of Mount Nebo today. The brilliant Byzantine mosaic remnants that can also be found here have undergone a restorative process to depict the entire route of the King’s Highway – an ancient trade route running through Jordan. Pieced together, the incredible collection showcases a variety of images including wildlife and local customs from the Byzantine era.

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The mosaic map of Madaba from the second half of the 6th century is one of the most important archaeological finds in Western Asia and one of the oldest evidence of ancient cartography. It was discovered at the end of the 19th century during the construction of St George’s Church on the foundations of a Byzantine church. About a quarter of the original mosaic has been preserved. The map covered the area from Lebanon in the north to the Nile delta in the south, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the desert in the east. The Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea form the central north-south axis. The representation of Madaba was unfortunately lost. It lay in the most important segment of the map directly in front of the pulpit, in line with Jerusalem. The mosaic map was not conceived as a practical orientation aid for pilgrims, but as a complex work of Christian art with several layers of meaning. The biblical cartography of Christian salvation and redemption is linked to “the idealistic, liturgical level of the exemplary image of an earth blessed by God” (R. Warland)..