A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stones, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. The oldest surviving original cartographic depiction of the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem dates to the 6th century CE. It is known as the Madaba Map, also called the Madaba Mosaic Map (picture), displaying part of a floor mosaic in the early Byzantine church of Saint George in Madaba, Jordan.

In 614, Madaba was conquered by the Sasanian (also spelled Sassanian) Empire also called the Neo-Persian Empire by historians. Subsequently in the 8th century, the ruling Muslim Umayyad Caliphate had some figure motifs removed from the mosaic. Then in 746, Madaba was largely destroyed by an earthquake and subsequently abandoned,

The map of the mosaic was made by unknown artists probably for the Christian community of Madaba which was the seat of a bishop at the time. It was discovered in 1884, during the construction of a new Greek Orthodox Church on the site of its ancient predecessor.

In the decades that followed, large portions of the mosaic map were destroyed by fires, activities in the new church and by the effects of moisture. Through the contribution of the Volkswagen Foundation to the German Association for the Exploration of Palestine, archaeologists undertook a project to restore and conserve the remaining parts of the mosaic.

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