Church of Saint George at Madaba

The Church of Saint George in Madaba, commonly known as the "Church of the Map," is an early Byzantine church. It is among the most beautiful historical sites in Jordan you should visit.

This early Byzantine church in Madaba has the famous Madaba Map of the Middle East, a 6th century AD floor mosaic representing an area ranging from Lebanon to the Nile Delta, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Eastern Desert. It is art history's oldest known geographic floor mosaic. It was most likely created by the Christian community of Madaba and includes a geographical picture of the Holy Land, particularly Jerusalem, which is the largest and most detailed portion in the center of the map. It faces east towards the altar, which corresponds to the compass orientations of the places.

Following conquests and earthquakes, the mosaic was rediscovered in 1884 during the construction of a new Greek Orthodox church, and was restored in the 1960s by the Volkswagen Foundation. Excavations in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter in 1967 found the Nea Church and the Cardo Maximus at the precise positions represented on the Madaba Map. In 2010, the discovery of a road running through the middle of Jerusalem, as depicted on the map, demonstrated its accuracy and invaluable worth to archaeologists.