Hisham’s Palace: A Mosaic Marvel Brought Back to Life
For nearly a thousand years, in a dusty patch of earth just outside the city of Jericho along the Jordan River near the northern shore of the Dead Sea, a great secret was hidden.
A splendid palatial compound, built in the eighth century as one of a series of “desert palaces” of the great Umayyad dynasty, an era of Muslim rule in the Holy Land and elsewhere that was marked by stability, economic prosperity, and the flowering of the sciences, culture, and art. The compound included a multi-story palace, a bath complex, and an adjacent agricultural zone. A human-made oasis at the base of the lowest point below sea level, the palace is believed to be a retreat for the caliph (ruler) Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik of Damascus. While its expansive architectural design was undoubtedly impressive and one of the marvels of its time, it is one particular feature that has made the compound, today known simply as “Hisham’s Palace”, internationally known: the mosaic floor of the bath complex, comprised of five million unique pieces and covering over 9,000 square feet, making it one of the largest mosaics in the world. It is not simply the size of the mosaic floor that is significant, but the beautiful geometric patterns and the richness of the colored pieces that have amazed visitors to the site since its rediscovery during excavations in the 1930s and 1940s.
Another noted mosaic of the complex is the celebrated “Tree of Life” bath-house mosaic floor, depicting a lion and gazelles under a tree, which along with the “Loaves and Fishes” mosaic found at the Tabgha Monastery on the northern shore of Galilee, has become one of the most iconic representations of the Holy Land. Hisham’s Palace was also richly decorated with ornate stone sculptures and stucco relief, the surviving parts of which can now be found at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, opposite Herod’s Gate in the Old City.
Efforts to both preserve and develop the site for the benefit of local visitors, tourists, and pilgrims have been ongoing since the founding of the Palestinian government in the 1990s. In late 2021, a multi-year, multi-million dollar project to re-open the site was completed after a large permanent canopy structure and viewing platforms were installed. Visitors can now safely view for themselves the beautiful richness of the thirty-eight mosaic panels in shaded comfort without damaging the ancient site, and ponder the splendor of ancient times.
To see a video of the mosaics of Hisham’s Palace, watch this production made by the Franciscan-run Christian Media Center: A Carpet Mosaic: Hisham's Palace in Jericho, or watch it below.
Journey to the Holy Land!
Good Shepherd Travel offers trips to Hisham’s Palace, Jericho and the Dead Sea as part of our Holy Land comprehensive pilgrimage package along with Jerusalem, Nazareth and the Galilee, and Bethlehem. Other popular pilgrimage tours to locations such as Rome, Lourdes, Fatima, and Ireland are also available. For more information on how to begin preparing for a pilgrimage in late 2022 and 2023, contact Good Shepherd Travel owner and manager, Tony AbuAita at Tony@goodshepherdtravel.com.