A visit to the Madaba Map

THE MADABA MAP was visited by Kalpala Sunder, who writes about it in The Hindu:

Time machine

KALPANA SUNDER

Bucolic scenes where herds of goats have the unofficial right of way, Bedouins swathed in flowing robes… Jordan echoes with stories from the Bible and reminders of the hoary past. This country is mentioned in both the Old and the New Testament as the tribal kingdoms of Edom, Moab and Ammon.

From Amman, we drive down the 5,000-year-old King's highway (one of the oldest roads in the world), which rambles through stunning landscapes. Our first stop is at Madaba the Mosaic Town. Hundreds of mosaic maps are scattered throughout this town where Christians and Muslims live in harmony. Madaba is an archaeologist's delight. The St. George's Greek Orthodox Church is a 19th Century construction, which has on its floors, a fragment of a wonderfully vivid mosaic map dating back to the 6th Century. This is the first cartographic representation of the Holy Land. This map, unearthed in 1896, was once a clear map of all the major Biblical sites from Palestine to Egypt, with over 150 captions in Greek. This map was probably intended to help pilgrims to the Holy Land. Today, this map has helped archaeologists and historians assign modern-day sites to places mentioned in the Bible.

Attention to detail

What makes the map come alive are the details — the fish that swim in the Jordan River turn back when they get to the Dead Sea; the lion that hunts a gazelle in the desert; the palm trees at Jericho...

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More on the Madaba Map here.