Our first stop this morning was at the Greek Orthodox St George's Church in Madaba. This church is renowned for the 6th century Byzantine mosaic on its floor that shows the entire region from the Nile Delta in Egypt in the south to Jordan and Palestine in the north. The detail recorded in this early map is impressive.
Just a few more kilometres by road found us at Mount Nebo which has been a centre for pilgrimages since the earliest Christian period. It is also reputed to be the burial site of Moses who climbed the mountain to view the Holy Land before he died. Unfortunately at present the peak of Mount Nebo is largely obscured with construction works. The historic church atop the mountain has been restored, but is now having a larger church, sponsored by the Vatican, built around it to preserve it. On the other side of the road the Ministry of Antiquities is building a new visitor centre that will commemorate Moses' journey from Egypt to Palestine. Ahmed says that this project is progressing very slowly.
Just down the road from the peak of Mount Nebo we visited a mosaic workshop. The mosaics that they
St Georges Church Mosaic Pictureproduce these days are much finer than those of old with the artisans working with stone pieces only a few millimetres in size. Very fiddly work for sure. The Aussie dollar doesn't buy much in Jordan so we only bought a coaster.
From the peak of Mount Nebo at just over 800 metres above sea level we drove down to the Dead Sea at around 400 metres below sea level - the lowest land elevation on Earth. This part of the Jordan Valley was much more barren than it was further north where we were yesterday, yet Ahmed pointed out the Bedouin tents dotting the rocky hillsides. We saw a couple of Bedouin women grazing their herds of sheep along the roadside. It looked like there was nothing but rocks for the sheep to eat, but Ahmed assured us that there were grasses for them to nibble on or the Bedouin would not be there.
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