The Madaba Mosaic Map depicts Jerusalem with the Nea Church, which was dedicated on the 20th of November, 542 AD. Buildings erected in Jerusalem after 570 AD are absent from the depiction, thus limiting the date range of its creation to the period between 542 and 570 AD. The mosaic was made by unknown artists, probably for the Christian community of Madaba, which was the seat of a bishop at that time. In 614, Madaba was conquered by the Persian empire. In the 8th century AD, the Muslim Umayyad rulers had some figural motifs removed from the mosaic. In 746, Madaba was largely destroyed by an earthquake and subsequently abandoned. The mosaic was rediscovered in 1894, during the construction of a new Greek Orthodox church on the site of its ancient predecessor. In the following decades, large