About us — Tessera Antiqua

Who We Are

Tessera Antiqua is a mosaic studio. Every piece starts as our own drawing and is cut and set by hand, one stone at a time. Each one is made once.

Our studio is a short drive from Madaba — Jordan's mosaic capital — on the grounds of Ma'in Heritage House. Separate from the guesthouse — you're not booking a stay, you're stopping by to watch the work happen. Visit during opening hours to see pieces being made.

The Studio

Tessera Antiqua, Ma'in

The studio sits just outside Ma'in Heritage House. It's an open space — no ticket, no appointment, just walk in during opening hours to see the process firsthand. Some of the stone worked here, including the yellow in Equilibrium and Echo, comes from the Ma'in quarry itself — the same ground the studio stands on.

AddressMa'in Heritage House, Ibn Kathir St., Ma'in
HoursDaily, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
VisitingWalk-ins welcome — no appointment needed

Get Directions

The House

Ma'in Heritage House

Tessera Antiqua's studio shares its ground with Ma'in Heritage House — a guesthouse recently renovated around structure and ruins dating back to the late 1890s, a short walk from one of the oldest churches in the country.

Guesthouse StaysBooked directly with Ma'in Heritage House by phone

Get Directions Call +962 79 646 6320

A Site With Real History

A few hundred feet from the studio are the remains of the Church of the Acropolis of Ma'in, dated by inscription to 719–720 AD and built under the Umayyads. The site is identified with the ancient town of Ba'al Ma'on — later known, in the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, as Belemounta

Its nave once held a mosaic combining geometric patterning with animal and figurative scenes, deliberately defaced during the region's iconoclasm — a fate shared by several churches around Madaba. A border roughly two metres wide ran around the design, filled with hunting scenes, and an inscription named eleven towns along the Jordan River — Karak among them, one of the same quarries Tessera Antiqua still sources stone from today.

The mosaic itself no longer sits at Ma'in — it was moved and is now on display at the Madaba Archaeological Park. What remains on site are the church's ruins, standing quietly a short walk from where these pieces are made.