Madaba is an easy-going little town 30 km south of Amman and is best known for its beautiful Byzantine-era mosaics, including the 'Madaba map', a 6th century mosaic map of Palestine. Made of two million pieces, the Madaba map shows the Dead Sea and Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. You can see this mosaic, possibly Madaba's most interesting, in the Greek Orthodox St George's Church. Most of Madaba is now a carefully restored Archaeological Park, including the 7th century churches of the Virgin and the Prophet Elias, and the older Hippolytus Hall.Madaba has been inhabited for at least 4,500 years, and is mentioned in the Bible as the Moabite town of Madaba (Numbers 21:30, Joshua 13:9, 16). The Moabite Stele or Stone, proudly erected by the Moabite King Mesha in 850 BC to celebrate his numerous victories over the Israelites, mentions Madaba. After several centuries of Moabite and Nabataean rule, Madaba and the surrounding lands became part of the Roman province of Arabia with the emperor Trajan's conquest of the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 AD. The city grew prosperous and, as was typical for a Roman provincial city, colonnaded streets and impressive public buildings were erected.