Identifier: jordanvalleypet01libb (find matches)
Title: The Jordan Valley and Petra
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Libbey, William
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Putnam
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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mall clock tower. Other settlers came from thesurrounding country, until there were several thou-sand people gathered together. Then the govern-ment, some fifteen years ago, made it a governmentcentre, and built a small serai on the ruins of achurch. The Greek orthodox people, in lookingfor a site, seized upon the ruins of an old basilicato the northwest of the mound, and here has beenmade the second great discovery beyond theJordan, if we give the first place to the MoabiteStone. The site is in a little saddle, where theroads fork toward the Jordan and Jerash, and allaround are fragments of mosaic pavements, whichonce drained their rainfall into huge cisterns, nowthe largest and cleanest in Madeba. Among theseneglected fragments of ancient pavements wasfound the precious mosaic map of the fifth century. It is now known that in 1884 a Greek monkliving east of the Jordan wrote a letter to theGreek Patriarch of Jerusalem, telling him of amosaic pavement at Madeba, covered with the names
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Madeba 267 of cities such as Jerusalem, Gaza, Nicopolis, Neapo-lis, etc. The Patriarch Nicodemus made no answer,but after he was exiled and Gerasimos put in hisplace, the new Patriarch found the letter of the Ma-deba monk, six years after it was written,—that is,in 1890. Gerasimos, guessing that this was an im-portant archaeological discovery, sent a master masonwith orders that if the mosaic was a fine one, toinclude it in the church which was to be built atMadeba for the use of the Greek population. Themosaic was at that time almost complete, and, bythe testimony of those who saw it, contained thenames of Smyrna, and other towns as far away.But the stupid builder, in his great desire to buildon the ancient foundations, destroyed the greaterpart of it, and drove a pilaster right through thepriceless piece, that he did not completely destroy.After the mischief was done, and the greater partof the relic lost forever, he went back to Jerusalem,and reported that the mosaic did not poss

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