Madaba's history goes back to biblical times, but the bishopric didn't become famous until it came under byzantinic leadership. Inspired by pattern books of the byzantinic world a similarity of the mosaics was developed. In the 6th century an architect built a mosaic map of the whole east of the bycantinic territory. That took him 11000 hours. The map reaches from Tyrus and Sidon to the Nildelta in Egypt and from the Mediterranean Sea to the East dessert. It's no topographic but a religious map. Today there are just a few parts of the original mosaic map, because mosaic stones were sold to tourists. A catastrophe for Madaba was a disastrous earthquake 749 a.D. which caused that until the 19th century no scripts were found.1898 the Greek Orthodox St. George-church was built over the helenistic ruins.
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| Mosaic map in the St. George-church in Madaba |
