A visit to Bisan / Beit Shean

Beit Shean or Beisan as it is called by Palestinians because before 1948 it was called Beisan and it had a population of 6000 people, is mainly known for the excavation of the ancient city and it is sometimes compared to Pompeii that was preserved so well because of the volcanic eruption, in this case the remains of Roman and Byzantine Beit Shean were preserved after a major earthquake. The ruins remained undisturbed and are now part of an archaeological park. 

The history of Beit Shean goes back to the Canaanite period, about 4000 years ago!

It became an important Egyptian administrative center and it is mentioned in the Bible. 

It grew into a really big Roman city with a lot of typical Roman features and it was the capital of the Decapolis. It flourished in Byzantine time. But then it was hit very hard by the major earthquake of 749 and since then the ruins have been left untouched. 

Today it is a national park that requires an entrance fee. It is located on the north side of the modern city of Beit Shean, it is South of the Lake of Galilee and it is east (north east) of Jenin. 

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Transcript

Beit Shean or Bisan as it is called by Palestinians because before 1948 it was called Bisan and it had a population of 6000 people, is mainly known for the excavation of the ancient city and it is sometimes compared to Pompeii that was preserved so well because of the volcanic eruption, in this case the remains of Roman and Byzantine Beit Shean were preserved after a major earthquake. The ruins remained undisturbed and are now part of an archaeological park. 

The history of Beit Shean goes back to the Canaanite period, about 4000 years ago!

It became an important Egyptian administrative center and it is mentioned in the Bible. 

It grew into a really big Roman city with a lot of typical Roman features and it was the capital of the Decapolis. It flourished in Byzantine time. But then it was hit very hard by the major earthquake of 749 and since then the ruins have been left untouched. 

Today it is a national park that requires an entrance fee. It is located on the north side of the modern city of Beit Shean, it is South of the Lake of Galilee and it is east (north east) of Jenin. 

It is close to two main water sources, the Harod stream, which flows from the foothills of the Gilboa mountain, and the Jordan river, which flows 5KM to the east of the site. 

The oldest part of Beit Shean is the Tel. It is called Tel el Husn. From the excavated lower city you look up at the tel in the background. If you want to climb up to the top, you can climb all the stairs on the right side of the Tel, BUT if you want to do it the easier way, then you should look for the access on the left side of the Tel that will take you to a road that brings you up to the Tel and then you can come down the stairs on the other side.

Let's do this chronologically and start with the history of Tel el Husn before we talk about the excavated lower city that dates from later period. If you are in Beit Shean there is a model at the entrance where you can see what Beit Shean looked like before it was destroyed in the earthquake.

The history of the city goes back to the third millennium before Christ. It was a large town on a very important location of major roads crossing each other at this point. This first town was destroyed by fire and then rebuilt as a smaller town.

The city is listed in Egyptian sources that mention the capture of the city by Tuthmos III the same Pharaoh that took Megiddo in the 15th century BC. The city is now in the hands of the Egyptians and it becomes an important Egyptian administrative center.

The excavators of the site found a basalt tablet from the time of pharaoh Seti I of the 13th century BC with the name of Beit-Shean on the tablet, which gives it a positive identification. On the same tablet we can read the name “Retenu”, which was the Egyptian name for the land where the Canaanites lived.

Beit Shean is also mentioned in the Amarna letters, a 14th century BC Egyptian archive of clay tablets.

According to the Biblical account the city of Beit Shean was NOT conquered by the Israelite tribes. In the Bible it says that Beit Shean was inhabited by the Philistines, but the archaeological remains show only Canaanite habitation. It may be that the writers of the Biblical story, who wrote it hundreds of years later, used the Philistine enemy in this story because they had gotten so used to depicting the Philistines as their arch enemy. But here archaeology does not match the Bible story.

In the Bible story the Philistines take the body of King Saul and his sons after the Battle of Gilboa to hang them on the outside of the wall of Beit Shean as a warning to their enemies. King Saul when he saw his defeat coming had asked his arms bearer to kill him but the poor man couldn't do it so Saul decided to fall into his own sword and commit suicide rather than falling into the hands of the Philistines. 

The Bible says that King David took control of Beit Shean in the 10th center BC and his son Solomon made it into an important city, an administrative center. But it didn't last for a long time under his rule, because Pharaoh Shishak took it in 925 BC and we know this from hieroglyphic inscriptions that were found at the Temple in Karnak where his victory is mentioned. 

The excavators did find a layer of destruction in the archaeological digs from that time period so that seems to be supported by archaeological findings.

In the last phase of the Egyptian rule there was a small palace on the tel. They found

Monumental stelae with inscriptions from the reigns of pharaoh Seti I and Ramses II which you can see in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem; and a life-size statue of pharaoh Ramses III and many other Egyptian inscriptions.

There are remains of several temples on the tel. Most of the temples they uncovered were then destroyed during the excavations because they wanted to dig down to the lowest level at 15th century BCE. 

The city was destroyed during the invasion of the Assyrians in the 8th century and then it was uninhabited until the Hellenistic period, after the conquest by Alexander the Great. 

During the Hellenistic period the city had a different name. It was known as Nysa-Scythopolis. We are not sure what the background of this name is but we know that polis is the Greek word for city. Maybe it was named after the veterans of Alexander's army that settled the city. 

But as often there is also a Greek mythological legend to explain the name and that is related to Dionysos, the god of wine, who was raised by a nurse called Nysa. He is said to have buried his nurse, Nysa, here and then settled the region with Scythians* to protect it. The Scythians were a nomadic people who came from Central Asia to southern Russia and Ukraine in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE and who were known to be good warriors.

It is in this period that the people did not only live up on Tel el Husn but they started moving down the slope, not completely into the valley but half way and another tel was excavated from that time period, just north east of Tel el Husn and it is known as Tel Istaba. 

In total they found about 20 different layers of settlement on the tel. 

The history of Beit Shean or Scythopolis continues in the Roman time when they move down from the top of the tel into the valley. The Roman empire was strong and they felt safe enough to leave the hill top and move down to the lower area. But although they built a new city at the foot of the hill, the Temple to Jupiter was built on top of the hill. Be aware that you can see this Temple to Jupiter on the model but that's only to give us an impression because the Temple has been completely destroyed and does no longer exist. 

In Roman time Scythopolis was mainly inhabited by pagans and it became on of the ten cities of the DECAPOLIS. Ten cities that were inhabited by mainly pagan population and that received special privileges from the Romans and had strong trade connections. These cities also served as an important border on the eastern front of the Roman empire.

In Byzantine period Beit Shean became largely Christian and the population reached 40.000

In this period they built a wall around the city to protect it. The Roman city at the foot of the hill did NOT have a city wall. But they did built some city gates, even though there were no walls. These gates did not have a protective role, obviously, but they were to indicate where the borders of the city started, which was important especially when it came to trade and to tax payments.

During the Byzantine period several churches and monasteries were added to the city. There is a large church monastery called Kairei Maria Church which is not open to public unless you have special permission to visit it. The church is dedicated by a woman called Mary, who was the donor, but it is NOT dedicated TO mother Mary, mother of Jesus. The church was just outside of the city wall and close to Nahal Harod (river)

When Palestine became ruled by the Arabs who conquered the land in the 7th century they called it BEISAN. During the early Muslim period the city declined in number and it was destroyed in the 749 AD earthquake. 

The Crusaders built a fort near the ruined amphitheater and in the Ottoman time there was a Palestinian village called Beisan. 

And that's in short the history of Beit Shean. 

Now let's go on a virtual tour starting from the entrance of the National Park. 

After you see the model you go down the ramp and you keep left towards the Roman bath house.

This bathhouse is the best preserved and reconstructed bathhouse in the country. It was very big. There were several open courtyards that were separated with pillars. 

The first room was for conversation and relaxation, the next one was called the palaestra and was a gymnasium for wrestling and physical workout where people would be naked and get sweaty before entering into the bathhouse. But before going into the bathhouse itself there was also a pool or reservoir with water.

Inside the bathhouse in the first section we see the pillae stacks on which the floor used to be and the hot air could move between the small pillars to heat up the room and the water. In the second room we see the same thing! The second room is closer to the furnace which makes it plausible that this was the original caldarium (the hot room). The first room may have been the original tippidarium, where the water would be warm but not hot.

Originally it may not have had the pillae stacks, but they later turned it into a caldarium when they realized that people wanted more hot rooms. 

The area where people cooled down was called the frigidarium. The frigidarium was outside of this reconstructed complex, away from the furnace (it was not heated at all).

On the corners of this room we see more robust pillars, probably they were holding up a stone dome. Bathhouses were usually built with domes so that the waterdrops from condensation would not fall straight down on the heads of the people but slipped down the sides of the dome to drop down on the side of the bathhouse, rather than in the middle.

As we leave the bathhouse on the other side we take left and we see on the back of the building a niche with a cross and the Alpha and Omega signs. This is Christian symbolism coming from the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelations, and symbolizes the reference to Jesus as the Beginning and the End, just like Alpha and Omega are beginning and end of the Greek alphabet. This area may have been a private bath section for the bishop. 

We continue our way and return to the water pool at the entrance, and we pass through the ruins of a building to reach the main road, the Palladius street. 

The bathhouse and the street were both made in the 4th century, but the bathhouse is NOT parallel to the road. To connect the bathhouse to the main road, they made a passageway with pillars, called a propilon. The pillars did not have any other function than to have a structure that is parallel to the street (which looks better and more perfect in the eyes of the ancients) and it connected to the bathouse. To disguise that the bathhouse was not parallel to the street. They were very sensitive to optical inconsistencies at that time!

The Palladius street is was originally a Roman street, renovated in Byzantine period. It had columns on both sides of the street and it runs from north to south BUT we can not call it a cardo officially because it does not connect the beginning and end of the city. It connects the mound of the tel with the theater. So we rather call it an internal street, 150 meter long, not a cardo.

The name of the Street, Palladius street, was given to it only after the excavations, so it is not an ancient street name It is named after an inscription that was found in a mosaic on the western side of the street that recounts the construction of the portico which was done “in the days of Palladius, governor of the province”. The excavators then called the road: Palladius street (so we don't know if it was called like that in Byzantine time, probably not!)

Because this is the lowest point in the city it collects rain water that had to be drained. 

We see that the street has an obvious higher middle line so that water can drain down. There was a system of channels and arches under the city to get rid off the rainwater. 

We continue walking and we are on the sidewalk now and on either side of the street there used to be shops.

On the eastern side, on the right from where we are, there was an agora (or forum), a market place. It was on a lower level. The shops here had actually TWO FLOORS, the lower floor had on opening to the agora and the upper floor had its opening to the Palladius street.

On the opposite side of the street, on our left, we see a series of shops that were built around a semicircular area, that is called the stigma in an inscription that was found on the site. 

Several of the rooms around this court were paved with colored mosaics displaying geometric, plant and animal motifs as well as Greek inscriptions. On one of the mosaic medallions we see Tyche, the guardian goddess of the city. She is wearing a crown of city walls and she is holding a cornucopia (a horn of plenty)

Here they also found inscriptions with texts that can be translated as : “if you enjoyed, go tell your friends” This lead to the belief that there may have been a brothel at this location! 

From this point you can go up the wooden stairs and a ramp that goes towards the palm trees where you can find the rubble road leading up to the Tel from the western side.

If you look up at the Tel you can see a tree without leaves, that was put up there by an Italian film maker called Zefirelli, for the production of a film about the life of Jesus and was used for the scene when Judas Iskariot hung himself. It has remained there and became a symbol for Beit Shean since the 1970s. 

As we continue to the right we pass by the Nymphaeum. A nymphaeum is a public fountain where everybody could come for clean water. 

Here we see some pillars that are lying down on the ground since the earthquake hit in 749. These are fluted columns, with fluting, meaning they have long grooves over the total length. This was done to give the columns a more perfect round illusion.

If we turn our back to the Nymphaeum we can see the only pillar that did not fall in 749 and still stands up straight today (it was not erected in later time as reconstruction!)

We continue to Silvanus street. This street was named Silvanus street after a lawyer by this name that was mentioned in inscriptions as having been involved in the hall's construction.

We continue up a flight of stairs to reach the higher level of the street that dates from later time, from Byzantine time and here on the left we can see how a complete set of pillars that were holding up an arch fell on the ground during the earthquake and they remained in the exact same position until they were excavated. We call this in articulation. We see the pedestal, base, pillar, capital and stones of the arch.

Our next stop can turn out quite hilarious. If you are visiting Beit Shean and you reach the foricae, which were the public lavatories, you should really go down and have a seat on one of the openings of the latrines. There are a large number of them and people would be seated all in a row next to each other, doing their business. The lavatories were strategically built next to the bathhouse and they were for public use, for the visitors of the bathhouse and the nearby theater. Water from the next door bath house was used as running water to flush underneath the seats. 

The Romans cleaned their behinds with sea sponges attached to a stick, and the gutter supplied clean flowing water to dip the sponges in. This soft, gentle tool was called a tersorium, which literally meant “a wiping thing.” 

Next we look at a flight of steps that used to lead up to a square raised podium on which a temple was built. They found a series of altars with inscriptions. They also found broken statues. Maybe the Christian Byzantine community broke the pagan statues when the city turned into a monotheistic center.

The compound dates to the 1st and 2nd centuries and besides temple and altars also had a Nymphaeum. We see one single bigger pillar that is standing inside a reservoir where a series of heads of lions functioned as spouts for water fountains coming out from their mouths. 

The last but most impressive visit inside ancient Beit Shean is the theater! It was built to seat about 5000 people. 

Just like the theater of Caesarea, it was built with an ambulacrum around the theater for people to move to their seats. The theater was much bigger than we see it today, it used to have TWO more cavea seating areas on top of what we see now. (So there were three tiers of seating originally) Only the lowermost is preserved intact.

Something interesting inside the theater are the blocked niches on the top of the upper row. At Caesarea we saw these blocked niches on the outside and we assumed they were used to sell tickets or snacks. Here they are inside and they seem to be directly in line with the long stairs going up the cavea. This may have been a natural way to amplify the voice of the players. That the voices were channeled through the staircase, hitting the niches and then reflecting back into the theater.

There is a special row with dignitary seats in the front, these seats have an actual back to lean on. For the VIP's. 

The spectators were protected from the sun by a velum, a curtain that covered all seats and provided shade.

And of course originally this theater had a scaenae frons, this formed the decor for the players who were playing on the stage in front of the scena frons. It was 20 meter high and comprised of a row of imported granite and marble columns, with decorated capitals and other architectural designs and several statues. 

This theater is still the stage for shows. From Monday through Thursday they organize a tour through the park at night time that ends at the theater with an audiovisual show that gives the audience the feeling that they are in ancient Beit Shean.