Tel Bet She'an Favorite Tips by Martin_S.

The "fallen" of Beit Shean

Favorite thing: Earthquakes destroyed most of Beit Shean, then called Scythopolis in 749CE. These photos graphically show some of the destruction. Floors upheaved, things tumbling this over that, columns toppled and looking like the local bowling alley of the GODS.

Fondest memory: The last photo shows me at Beit Shean with my partner in travel "crime", my wife Zohara. She is often kind enough to suffer through a day scrambling through ancient ruins, even though she does not enjoy it so much, to let me satisfy my hunger for history.

The Sigma

Favorite thing: The Sigma is a semi-circular area with shops or rooms on one side. Many of the rooms are decorated with mosaics and tiles with geometric shapes, animals and even one of Tyche the guardian goddess of this city. What the use of the rooms or shops were is not explained.

Palladius Street, the main drag in town

Favorite thing: The main street where everything came together, the "center" of town, the Broadway of Beit Shean.
Palladius was the name of the governor of the area and the story goes that the archeologists found an inscription telling about construction during his term, so they named the street after him.

Roman Bathhouse

Favorite thing: After the theater the most important thing in a Roman life was the bathouse. Again here in Beit Shean there was no stinting on the all important bathouse. From the frigadarium to the tepidarium and on into the hot room its all there, only one problem the floor is missing, apparently the marble was taken for dwellings after much of the city was destoryed in earthquakes.
If you look at one of the photos of the mosaic floor you will see swastikas, even though Hitler in his Nazi Germany stole this symbol for his flag, it has been used throughout history and can be found in many Roman settlements as far apart as Beit Shean, Israel and Conimbriga, Portugal.

Roman Theater

Favorite thing: For sure the Romans loved their entertainment. Almost any settlement of any size had its own elaborate theater and Beit Shean was no exception. Several of the entrance tunnels were cut out of the mountainside and the capitols for the columns on the stage are fine works.

Overview

Favorite thing: Much of what is still preserved here in Beit Shean is from the Roman period and many of their structures stand out and "stand up" to the process of time. The majority of what is here today is from the period of rebuilding done around 63BC