Saint George Church - Mosaic Map
12/23/2017
11:31 am
Madaba (JO)
3 days in Jordan (Decapolis)One of the most vibrant cities for which the Holy Land of Jordan is famous is Madaba. Often you can hear the second name of this locality - 'the edge of the mosaics.' Among all the mosaic paintings, the map of Jerusalem with the image of the Holy Land of the fourth century is especially distinguished. In addition, more than two million colored pebbles created paintings depicting local hills and valleys. For the first time about the ancient Jordanian settlement mentioned in the Bronze Age. In the Bible, Madaba is mentioned more than once as a Moabite border town. During the period of existence of the empires of Rome and Byzantium, falling on the second - sedbmy centuries, the Jordanian city was part of the existing province of Arabia. It was created by the ruling Roman emperor Troyan. So he sought to replace the previously created Nabatean kingdom. For the first time about the Christian community established in the city, and having its own bishop, is mentioned in historical documents in the fifty-first year of the fifth century. The first place among the attractions of Madaba rightfully belongs to the church, erected in honor of St. George. Before its construction here was a Byzantine temple. The shrine was built in the sixth century. After the strongest earthquake of the eighth century, the church, like the whole city, turned into ruins. In such a poor state, she spent more than a thousand years. Christian pilgrims could not only find the ancient city and dig out of the ground, but also find the ancient archaeological shrine, which they decided to restore without fail. Despite large-scale destruction, the mosaic creations of the masters of antiquity survived. Starting from the VI. n e. Christian religious buildings were erected in the city, beautiful mosaics of which made up the glory of Madaba. The most famous of the panels found here is a mosaic map of the Holy Land (VI., Original size 25 by 5 m.), Depicting the territory from the Phoenician city of Tire (Lebanon) to the Nile Delta in Egypt (center - Jerusalem with the layout of that time). In our time, the map is in the active (!!) Orthodox Church of St. George (1884), built over the remnants of the Byzantine church.
