3/28/2011 - Beit She'an

We continued our drive toward Jerusalem driving past fields of banana and mango trees.

In the Jordan Valley there is a seismic rift.  The mountains of Jordan have shifted 60 miles north so they appear higher than those hills in Israel.

Beit She'an is where King Saul met his end.  King Saul, the first Israelite King, met his end after he was defeated by the Philistines at Mt. Gilgal.  He was so distraught at the loss that instead of being killed by the Philistines, he and his sons fell upon their own swords.  Their bodies were found and were beheaded and hung upon the walls.  After being taken down, the bodies were created.  The crown of Saul was taken by a young boy to David to let him know of Saul's death.  David then became King.

Outside the park was an amphitheatre that was destroyed by an earthquake (as was the rest of the park).  Once inside we saw a theatre with much of the back wall rebuilt.  It was said to have three layers of seats - one had been reconstructed, one was partially visible, the uppermost level was gone.

Gary with the Mascot of Israel's National Parks

A model of Beit She'an

Theatre

Hippodrome

Market

Looking through the street of the Cardo to the Tel

The stage of the theatre.

Mike taking a picture of us in the theatre.

Across from the theater was the bath house.  At the time this was built, there was no soap, but it was thought that sweating was a cleansing activity so there was an area for wrestling in the bath house.  They would then enter the three stages of the bathing process - the calderium (hot); the teppiderium (warm); and the frigiderium (cold).  The last step to close the pores of the skin.

The wrestling/warm-up area to the bath house.

There was a main street with mosaics on one level and marble at a later time.  The street for carts was higher in the middle, sloping to the edges so water would run to the gutters.  There were columns on either side of the street where the market (cardo) building was located.

Marble layered over the mosaics of a time period before.

The columns were large, but this is a decorative cap with John standing behind it.

We went up many steps to the Tel above where the Temple was located.  From above we had full perspective of the entire site.

Across the Jordan Valley

From the top of the Tel we could see across to Jordan and into the very green Jordan Valley.   When we came down from the Tell we saw the ruins of another bath house and of the public lavatory with its toilets lined up against one wall.  We could hear music playing in the distance and when we walked back through the theatre, there was an Israeli man playing his clarinet on the stage.

Oddly enough, this historic location is right around the corner from a Kosher McDonald's in Beit She'an.