If the story of the restoration of the floor mosaic at Jericho were an old Arabic fable, it could perhaps be called “The story of the birds and the three foxes”. It went something like this: Almost a century after its discovery, the spectacular floor mosaics in a bathhouse from the eighth century are finally to be made accessible to the public. Palestinian and Japanese archaeologists devise an elaborate plan for a huge metal domed roof that is stretched over the building to protect the exposed remains from heat and moisture. After five years of construction everything is ready when the archaeologists notice a problem that they had not expected: birds that slip through the metal grids on the sides of the protective cover,could damage the mosaics through their legacies. And three foxes have already made it into the interior.

Christian Meier

Editor in politics.

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The story has not yet been told, its morals (possibly: "How technology-believing people are outwitted by nature") is still uncertain.

Because a solution to this problem has still not been found, reports Mansour Karaja.

The Palestinian is part of the team of archaeologists who look after the complex of Khirbat al-Mafjar, also known as the "Palace of Hisham".

The approximately 60 hectare complex is one of the so-called desert castles of the Umayyads, the first caliph dynasty.

Hisham ruled from 724 to 743 AD - or, more importantly in its context, a century after the death of the Prophet Mohammed.

Khirbat al-Mafjar was built in the mid-740s - as a winter residence either for the caliph Hisham himself or for his nephew and successor al-Walid II. The old oasis city of Jericho, north of the Dead Sea in the Jordan Valley, offered a tolerable climate.

The culmination of the art of decoration

However, it is uncertain whether the caliph ever lived in the palace. For as early as 749 an earthquake destroyed Khirbat al-Mafjar, and shortly afterwards the Umayyads residing in Damascus were dethroned by the Abbasids, and the center of the empire shifted to the east. Karaja is convinced, however, that many of the Umayyad princes stayed here. “They were brought up in the palaces of the Jordanian desert according to the ideals of the Bedouins,” says the 29-year-old archaeologist. In addition, the desert castles were places of recreation and entertainment, such as hunting, but they also served to control important trade routes. Last but not least, they should impress travelers and nomads: with an elaborate interior design.

For this reason, the desert castles are outstanding examples of early Islamic art and architecture.

The palaces and other buildings of the complex were decorated inside with reliefs, paintings and mosaics.

In Khirbat al-Mafjar, one of the highlights of this decorative art can now be fully admired for the first time: a few days ago the floor mosaic of the bathhouse was opened to visitors - despite birds and foxes.

Also for foreigners, because since Monday, for the first time since the beginning of the corona pandemic, tourists have been allowed to enter Israel again - and thus also drive to Khirbat al-Mafjar, which is in the Palestinian West Bank.

Sustainable design

There you can see one of the largest connected mosaics in the world. The ensemble, comprising 38 individual mosaics, consists of around six million parts. It extends over almost the entire area of ​​the bathhouse, which was comparatively large at more than 820 square meters and was used, among other things, to receive visitors.

The mosaic was rediscovered in the 1930s, but so far it has only been partially accessible.

A walkway has now been built on the pillars of the bathhouse ruins under the white domed roof.

You walk over it at a height of several meters over the mosaics.

The architects, archaeologists and conservation specialists involved made sure that everything could be dismantled without difficulty, says Mansour Karaja.

"In the event that in 100 years mankind will have better conservation techniques than we do today."

An almost perfect work

The mosaics can be studied in all their glory from above.

Their patterns imitate carpets: earthy tones and geometric and floral structures dominate.

In the semicircular niches of the bathhouse, the design resembles almost modern optical art: jagged colored ribbons in blue, red and yellow run across the floor.

In the middle of the bathhouse, probably directly under the main dome, there is a large medallion made of thousands of triangular stones in different colors and sizes.

They form star- and almond-shaped patterns that connect to form a spiral that seems to reach infinity.

The artist inserted one of the small stones the wrong way round, says Karaja.

Otherwise his work would have been perfect - but only God is perfect.

The abstract patterns typical of Islamic art are only broken through at one point: the divan, a private reception room.

At the head end, where the caliph sat, there is a representation of a tree of life.

Below him on one side is a lion tearing a gazelle;

on the other side, two gazelles graze peacefully.

Possibly the motives stood for war and peace and for the power of the caliph over them.