Out of the galilee, into our hearts.

Let me just say that this was my favorite site. It was excellently preserved, and you could truly imagine what life must have been like in Jesus time. First pictures are a gladiator arena. Then the city itself. It's called Bet Shean.


Into the Arena. (the ramp is artificially created).




Some of the tools that were used to excavate the site were sitting in one of the prisoner holding areas.


A Panoramic view of the arena.


Can you imagine waiting in these holding cells for the door to open and rushing out into the arena to kill or be killed? How many Christians were murdered mercilessly in this very arena?



Bill, the mighty spartan, member of the order of sons of Nel.



This area was actually below ground originally. Now it has been excavated.



A zoomed out view of the city. This picture does the size of the area no justice.



An excellently preserved ampitheatre.









Call me obsessed, but I really enjoy the study of ancient toilets.


Someone left this handy reading material for Karen. You can see the physics of the public bathrooms. Typical of Roman cities.



While the latrine was very cool for us (and comfortable), imagine the stench if it were in use.



Toilet paper dispenser. Clean water would run down this trench. Though primitive for our standards, Romans were incredibly cleanly conscientious
.


I"m not even going to comment. . . But i already did.


This picture gives a little better idea of the scope...but the columns are way bigger than you expected.

This entire wall fell down in a documented earthquake. The stones were found just like this. Pretty amazing.




These columns were giant. I promise.

See what I mean?



Cooky, but this is an ancient sewer. I may have a problem.


Here you can see that the streets were sloped so as to run the rainwater down these ancient gutters.


Political paraphernalia. This mosaic describes who paved the sidewalk. Brought to you by your local city official.


Here you can see some of the sidewalk he maid. Smooth.


By the way, the main street in a Roman city was called the cardo ("heart"). Hence the title of this slide.


This was the creek created by Gideon's spring.

All of us after taking a drink from the spring.


The spring proper. We actually saw one of the three primary generals of Israel here. He had an entourage and everything. He also had a very nice motorcade.

Craig, bending over to lap the water from the spring.
Karen, on the other hand kept a lookout while we drank.