Beit She'an

Beit She'an sits at a crossroads of valleys that made it important for thousands of years, and the excavated Roman and Byzantine city at the foot of its ancient tell is the largest and most complete of its kind in the country. You walk down colonnaded streets still paved with their basalt slabs, past a bathhouse with its heating system exposed, public latrines, a semicircular theatre that seated several thousand, mosaic floors and a monumental gateway, with rows of columns lying exactly where a great earthquake in 749 threw them down, which is the site's most striking feature. Above it all rises the tell, a mound of some twenty superimposed settlements going back to the Bronze Age, climbed by a path for a view across the whole excavated grid and out to the Jordan valley and the hills beyond.

History

Beit She'an is believed to be one of the oldest cities in the region, important for its position where the Jordan Valley meets the Jezreel Valley, and in the Hellenistic period it was known as Scythopolis; the town lies about 120 m below sea level (Wikipedia, Beit She'an).

Highlights

• The colonnaded streets - the paved main streets with their standing and fallen columns.
• The Roman theatre - the well-preserved semicircular theatre.
• The bathhouse and mosaics - the heating system, floors and public buildings.
• The tell - the climb up the ancient mound for the view over the site.

When to go

November to April is far more comfortable, as the Jordan valley is one of the hottest places in the country and summer visits are punishing; go early or late in the day whenever you come. A night show has run in some seasons, lighting the ruins after dark, which is worth checking.

Things to know

The valley heat is serious and the site is almost entirely without shade, so summer midday visits are genuinely unpleasant; water, hat and timing matter. It is a large site with a lot of walking on uneven ancient paving, and the climb up the tell is steep. Interpretation on site is patchy, so an audio guide or some reading beforehand adds a great deal.

Nearby

The Sea of Galilee and Tiberias are half an hour north; the Gilboa ridge rises to the west.