iconoclasm

Iconoclasm is about the coolest thing ever. I mentioned earlier that last weekend we went around Madaba to see the mosaics and sites. We saw tons of mosaics from around the 8th century, many of which were still very well preserved. The most interesting ones, however, were the ones that weren't. After the Muslim conquest in the 8th century a decree banning depiction of animals in humans in artwork soon followed. Many mosaics were destroyed or went under iconoclasm, where the tiles of the animals and humans in churches and public places were reorganized and jumbled. It is suspected that many of the jumbling was actually done by the Christians to preserve the artwork though. Many of the mosaics will be complete except for a fuzzy patch. The extent to which the tiles were rearranged varies and sometimes there will be a pair of legs sticking out nowhere.

Another cool mosaic we saw was the most famous, the Madaba map. It depicts very accurately Jerusalem and the holy land with each individual city mapped out in the area. It is thought that this was a destination along pilgrimage routes.





















If you are ever in Jordan, it's definitely worth it to stick around an extra day and check out the Mosaics. It has the added bonus of being almost entirely free of tourists. At each site we went to there were at tops only a dozen other people there with us.