Madaba, Moses and Moab

October 22, 2017

Madaba, Moses and Moab

Bright and early on a sunny Sunday we loaded on the bus for the long drive to Petra. Along the way, our first stop was at Mount Nebo. The story is that Moses first saw the promised land (Palestine) from the top of Mount Nebo and also died there.

On a clear day you can see multiple countries. It was a touch too hazy for us.

A modern statue depicts the staff of Moses with a snake coiled around. It’s a symbol of healing and medicine that you still see today on hospital and pharmacy emblems. The imagery is from the bible - the story of the bronze serpent Moses created in the desert.

Inside the Memorial Church of Moses, the floors and walls are covered in intricate mosaic work. The mosaic are cut from rock, so they are all natural colours and have not faded from their original state.

The mosaic floor of the Diakonikon (530 AD)

But the tiles do get dusty. Their true colour comes out when the tiles are washed or wetted. See the right top corner below where some guide maaaaaay have poured water when the guards weren’t looking.

It being Sunday, there was an active service going on. While lines of tourists clomped along on squeaky metal walkways.

The church and monastery were constructed in the second half of the fourth century to commemorate the place of Moses’s death. However, there is much debate as to whether his remains are interred anywhere nearby.

The baptismal font.

Outside was the Abu Badd - a giant rolling stone door used to protect an ancient Byzantine monestary. That would be one heavy door.

Pope John Paul II visited the church in the early 2000s and a statue was erected in his memory.

Coming down the mountain, we visited a mosaic school and shop learning a little about modern and historic mosaic techniques. Both use stone in its natural state, cutting each mosaic piece by hand. The pieces are dipped in a natural glue and placed with tweezers. When the mosaic is complete, it was painted with a white cement and put in the sun to dry. When the glue had set, the mosaic was removed from its wood frame and turned over to reveal the front, the final product.

Now they use rubber cement to set the mosaic to make it flexible and durable.

Another beautiful technique involves cleaning an ostrich egg, grinding the stone into fine powder, mixing it with glue and baby powder, and finely piercing the shell with a tiny needle. Almost like tattooing. The results are an incredibly detailed piece.

After our visit with the artists, we headed to the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George to see the famous Madaba Map - a large mosaic map on the floor of the church. It is the oldest cartographic depiction of the Holy Land and was created in he sixth century AD. The map is 15 by 7 metres and the church is a functioning place of worship, so you cannot see the whole map at once. But there’s a handy picture of the whole map out front!

Here are some of the highlights of the map.

The Nile depicted flowing east to west instead of north to south.

A city on the Mediterranean, likely the acropolis.

The Jordan river wish adorable fishies.

And the Dead Sea featuring fishermen in their boats. Their faces were removed to prevent the worshipping of idols.

There were mosaic depictions of myths and saints from the bible adorning the walls. And the original arches remain intact.

From Madaba it was on to Karak, which meant crossing the Moab region and he Jordan Valley. It is a 1000 foot decline to reach the valley floor. At the bottom is the Moab Dam which we drove over to ascend the other side.