Ancient Beth She'an/Scythopolis

I must say that this site was absolutely one of the most remarkable places I have seen this whole trip up to this point. This site is actually two ancient cities - one build on top of (or rather around) the other. This first city built here was a Canaanite city known as Beth She'an. In the Old Testament, the bodies of Saul and Jonathan were hung on its city gates after they fell in battle (as recorded in 1 Sam. 31). About one thousand years later, the Romans expanded the Greek settlement here known as Scythopolis and it became an opulent jewel of a city advantageously situated in the Jordan Valley. The New Testament records it as one of the cities of the Decapolis (the only one west of the Jordan River). The residents of Scythopolis became rich because of their manufacturing of linen (which became known as the best in the known world of the time). By Jesus' day, it was a luxurious Graeco-Roman city with all the convieneces Rome had to offer: an amphitheatre for gladitoral sport, a hippodrome for chariot racing, a theatre, a bath house, market, multiple pagan temples, etc. It all came to a sudden end, however, when the city was absolutely leveled in a major earthquake which struck in 749 AD. To the left of me, you can see the column that fell to its side and to the right you can clearly see the corinthian capital that sat atop it. Also notice the broken pavement from the main thoroughfare upon which this column fell. Here it is - unchanged since that moment 1,250 years ago!