Ancient Madaba Map to Be Brought to Life Through VR
A 1,500-year-old map of the Holy Land will be brought to new audiences through virtual reality (VR), interactive displays and travelling exhibitions under a project at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
The initiative will make the Madaba Map and its history more accessible to students and the public. It will turn a life-sized replica held by the university into the centrepiece of digital exhibitions, educational programmes and immersive experiences for schools, museums and community groups.
The original Madaba Map remains inside St. George’s Church in Madaba, Jordan. Artisans created the floor mosaic during the sixth century using thousands of small stone pieces known as tesserae. The mosaic is widely regarded as the oldest surviving map of the Holy Land and contains the earliest known cartographic depiction of Jerusalem.
The map extends from present-day Lebanon to Egypt’s Nile Delta. It depicts cities, rivers, mountains and important pilgrimage sites associated with the biblical landscape. Its representation of the region provides a view of how people in late antiquity imagined the biblical landscape.
The University of Göttingen’s connection to the map extends beyond displaying a reproduction. Its life-sized replica was created in the 1970s using mould impressions taken directly from the original mosaic in Jordan. The copy was preserved in the university’s collection of plaster casts and has since become a historical artefact in its own right.
The replica also forms part of the research history surrounding the Madaba Map. The project, titled Auf der Karte nach Jerusalem, or “On the Map to Jerusalem”, will examine how the copy was produced and how it has been studied and interpreted over the decades.
Students will contribute to that research by examining archival records documenting the replica’s history. The project will therefore consider not only the ancient mosaic, but also the later history of its reproduction and scholarly study.
Public engagement is another central part of the initiative. Students will help develop exhibitions for schoolchildren, museum visitors, church communities and researchers. The work will combine the physical replica with digital material and immersive experiences.
Interactive displays will allow visitors to examine high-resolution images of the mosaic. The project will also use VR to recreate the setting of the original map. Visitors in Germany will be able to enter a virtual representation of St. George’s Church and view the setting in which the ancient mosaic remains preserved.
The project will extend beyond the university through pop-up exhibitions. These will be organised across the University of Göttingen, the city of Göttingen and the surrounding region.
The combination of the life-sized replica, archival research, digital imagery and VR will allow audiences to explore both the Madaba Map and the history of its reproduction. The original mosaic will remain in St. George’s Church in Jordan, while the Göttingen replica will serve as the physical centre of the project’s exhibitions and educational activities.
The initiative will use these resources to present the map to schools, museums, church communities, researchers and other members of the public. Its exhibitions and immersive experiences will provide access to the ancient map and its historical context without requiring audiences in Germany to visit the original site in Jordan.
