ABSTRACT

In a miniature from the Christian Topography, for example, the journey of Saul from Jerusalem to Damascus, during which he was blinded by the light, found Christ, and took on the new name of Paul, is all condensed into a single frame. The representation of Jerusalem tells us that to the armchair travellers who commissioned and made the Madaba mosaic map, there were two critical principles that governed topographical representation, and by which space was ordered and controlled. In fact, the visual strategy mapped out on the Madaba floor insists upon a particular type of travel across the entire landscape. Colour, scale and text work together to impose a hierarchical structure on the topography, and it is a distinctly Christian hierarchy. The location of the Nile is a second striking geographical feature imposed by a Christian understanding of topography.