madaba
Madaba has a lot of old churches with giant floor mosaics.
Most of the damage on this one has been done by chickens pecking at the stones. Which is probably why they left the chicken images alone.
The stones that make up the images are very small.
The camels and palm trees are very good.
But this tiger bear looks very strange.
Back in the day when we were learning to drive GPS was really expensive so we had to get these big paper maps from the AMA.
Back before the AMA people had to actually pay money for big paper maps.
Back in the 6th century when paper was really expensive and people couldn’t afford it, tourists had to stop by this church to figure out where they were going.
The map was 21m x 7m and made of over two million little stones. But at least you couldn’t hold it upside down and get confused.
The boat is in the Dead Sea, and below it (which is West, because we’re standing at the back of the church, and churches face East) in the big oval is Jerusalem.
That is the Nile over on the right.
Unfortunately the map was defaced by the Persians when the area was conquered, then hit by an earthquake and multiple fires. So it has some holes. But we’re just going wherever the tour bus takes us anyway.
There were lots of other mosaics in the church. Even the plaque telling you which church you are in is a mosaic.
They also did lots of Bible scenes. Like the time Jesus was patted on the head by John the Baptist while walking on water to rescue a tiny drowning man with wings. But those mosaics are newer and not in the guide book so nobody cares.
