The lost city of Tharais once part of Jordan's Holy Lands has been found

A 1,500-year-old map has led humans to discover a lost city from the Byzantine Empire. The Madaba Mosaic Map built during Emperor Justinian’s reign (527-565 A.D.) shows a total of 157 sites that were part of Jordan's Holy Lands. The art piece on a tile is the oldest map available today that shows all these cities. However, most of them have yet to be found. But, now archaeologists might have found one of them.

Musallam R. al-Rawahneh, an associate professor of archaeology and ancient Near East studies at Mutah University, made the discovery and published the findings in the journal Gephyra.

The team started looking for a city named Tharais, which dates back to the Byzantine Empire. The work started in 2021, and after four years of research, the archaeologists think they might have found it.

They started with the Madaba Mosaic map and newer maps that acted as jumping points. Field research was carried out near a modern city called El-’Iraq located near the southeastern edge of the Dead Sea.

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They started discovering clues that hinted at the existence of Tharais in the region years ago. There were remains of mosaic floors, glassware, and various tools that the researchers said showed that an ancient city once lay there.

Religious clues hinted at lost city

What prompted the researchers to be sure that what they had found was indeed Tharais was how everything matched the depiction of the lost city in the Madaba Mosaic map. The gates, ruins, and even towers were the same.

However, what nailed everything together were the religious findings. They found features that resembled a Byzantine basilica, a building elongated in one direction with an open-air central room. The team got in touch with Spanish and French researchers to dig deeper.

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The site threw up more surprises, such as Greek and Latin funerary inscriptions. These confirmed the theological connection of the place as the findings proved that a Christian community once thrived in the region.

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“The prominence of Tharais on the Madaba Map and the discovery of a basilica church structure suggest that it served not only as an agricultural village but also as a sacred site and commercial rest stop,” al-Rawahneh said, as per a Türkiye Today report.

The lost city of Tharais was not only religious, but also economically prosperous, as proven by the discovery of olive oil presses, windmills, and grape crushing equipment.