Jordan holds a dense concentration of sites tied to the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels, most of them within an hour of Amman and easily combined into a single day with the Dead Sea.
Mount Nebo
At 710 m, Nebo is where Deuteronomy places Moses at the end of his life, shown the land he would not enter and buried in a valley nearby. On a clear day the view reaches Jericho, the Dead Sea and the hills of Jerusalem. A Byzantine church was built on the summit in the fourth century and expanded later; the modern shelter over it protects an outstanding set of sixth-century floor mosaics, including a hunting and herding scene of remarkable liveliness. Pope John Paul II visited in 2000 and planted an olive tree.
Madaba
Ten minutes away, the town of Madaba holds the oldest surviving cartographic depiction of the Holy Land: a mosaic floor map made around 560 in what is now the Greek Orthodox church of Saint George. It originally contained over two million tesserae and showed the region from Lebanon to the Nile delta; the surviving section includes a detailed plan of Jerusalem with the Cardo and the Holy Sepulchre, which has been used by archaeologists to locate buried structures. Madaba has many more mosaics in its archaeological park and in the Church of the Apostles, and a long tradition of Christian residents.
Bethany beyond the Jordan
Al-Maghtas, on the east bank of the Jordan River, was identified in the 1990s after the area was demined, and is accepted by the Vatican and by UNESCO as the site of the baptism of Jesus. Excavations have uncovered churches, baptismal pools and a monastic settlement on the hill traditionally associated with Elijah. The river here is now a stream a few metres wide, and Israeli visitors stand on the opposite bank. Access is by shuttle from the visitor centre only.
Machaerus
A hilltop fortress above the Dead Sea, built by the Hasmoneans and rebuilt by Herod the Great, and named by Josephus as the place where John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded. Little remains but the position is dramatic and there are almost no visitors.
Practicalities
Nebo, Madaba and the baptism site form a natural circuit from Amman. Modest dress is appropriate at all of them. The baptism site charges separately and is not on the Jordan Pass at all times; check when you book.