By Luke Bellissimo
Students admiring the mosaic floors of the Church of the Apostles, Madaba. (Photo by L. Bellissimo)
Our first field trip consisted of a walking tour of Madaba. Prior to the outing, I had no idea that Madaba was a city full of such historical significance! Our first stop on the tour was the Madaba Museum. I wonder if the finds from my own square at Mukhayyat might one day end up on display at the museum! Afterwards, we visited the Church of the Apostles. The floor of the church was completely covered in mosaics with scenes of animals, people, and nature. Each tessera was about the size of my computer key and there was well over a million of them in place.
After leaving the church we walked to the most famous site in Madaba: The Church of the Map. The mosaic floor of the church displays the major cities in the Holy Land. Mosaic maps are rather rare, but this map is geographically accurate and well preserved, making it all the more unique. Apart from the mosaic, the rest of the church is also quite beautiful. There are an assortment of paintings and mosaics displayed on the walls of the church depicting scenes of saints, apostles, and other religious figures. For anyone visiting Madaba, this is definitely a stop you need to make on your tour of the city.
Our last destination on our tour, and my favourite place by far, was the Archaeological Park. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, Madaba is a city known for its mosaics, and this venue has a wide variety of them! It is filled with mosaics from all different time periods. A great thing about the park is that you can see the changes in customs and styles of artists as time progressed. My favourite mosaic in the park was a very basic black and white design, and it is considered the oldest mosaic ever found in Jordan.
After the tour, our Director, Debra Foran, took us out for refreshments at a local Café in town, a great way to end a day of walking in the Jordanian heat. I was shocked at the amount of history located within a five kilometer radius from our house! All in all, the field trip left me with the desire to learn more about Near Eastern culture. I’m excited to see what the next five weeks of the archaeological dig hold in store for the 2014 team.