♪ (music) ♪
We are in Scythopolis.
The Beit Shean, the ancient Beit Shean.
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It's going to be really cool.
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This city is the biggest of The Dekapolis,
the ten cities that the Romans built to showcase their luxurious life,
the Roman luxurious life, so here's what they did, right.
So they said, "Come to these cities, the ten cities,
Beit Shean being the largest Dekapolis."
They're saying, "Look at our life.
We've got everything here.
Take example from us.
We are the modern civilization.
We are at the edge of technology, the edge of architecture,
the edge of entertainment," and truly they were.
But not for long.
♪ (music) ♪
(Sergio)
in the Middle East region and called them the Dekápolis.
Today, the remains of only two of them are within the borders of Israel.
Scythopolis was the greatest of the ten cities.
And due to the great earthquake that destroyed it,
it laid in ruins untouched until it was excavated.
(Rhoda) In the 8th century AD there was a huge earthquake here
that levelled the whole city.
(Sergio)
It goes much further back in time.
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(Sergio) This place goes back all the way to 4th to 5th century BC,
That's right, almost 6,000 years old caves were found here that had remains
of the early human life.
Adam and Eve time? Possibly.
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(Sergio)
Even Eqyptians were here.
15th century BC, they found administrative house for the Egyptian Empire.
Yes, the Pharoah was here. That's right.
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(Rhoda) This behind me is one of the most important art pieces
from the Canaanite time that were found here in Israel.
It shows a fight between a lion and a dog.
Dog resembles the keeper of a city and the lion resembles a plague,
something that harms the city and as you see the dog
is biting the lion, trying to protect the people from the plague.
I think a cat would have done a better job.
Like Fifi?
Really?
And then, the Canaanites were here, right?
And during the Canaanites reign, what happened?
The Israelites came to the land of Israel.
They conquered the land but it says that Manasseh failed
to conquer this city of Beit Shean, this place right here.
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(Rhoda) We read about Beit Shean in the scriptures
as a place where King Saul's body along with his sons was hung
by the Philistines when they were defeated.
If we look over there this is the Gilboa Mountain
where the war happened and it's not that far at all,
and they would have brought the bodies and hung them here
as a sign of dishonor to the King and his sons,
and then the Israelites came and took those bodies
to bury them properly.
So this is where it would have happened in this area right here.
Though later this city was conquered by King David.
In fact, he burned the entire place,
Nothing but char but then, King Solomon, his son, rebuilt it.
But history does not end there, the Egyptians took this place back
with the fall of King Rehobom but not for long
because the Assyrians completely destroyed to the ground.
For three centuries this place laid in ruins
until the 3rd century BC, the Greeks rebuilt it
and renamed the city to Scythopolis.
But the history, again, does not end there because a century later,
the Hasmoneans, the Jewish Rebellion Force,
destroys it one more time.
So then a century later what did the Romans do?
They said, "Forget this place. It's ruined, it's still here,"
the ruins from their time, they're still here.
The Romans says, "We'golng to rebuilt Scythopolis but not up here.
We're going to build it down there and we're going to make it
the greatest city in the region."
♪ (upbeat music) ♪
This is an incredible preservation of the Roman bathhouse.
Absolutely spectacular, look at this.
So this is how it would work.
Outside of the bathhouse, they would have those chimneys
where they would burn the wood and the hot air would blow
through under the floor, in between those little pillars
and that hot air would heat up the water that would be above the floor
of those pillars, so today, we just see the pillars, there is no floor
but you can imagine the layer of floor here
that would be really hot, that heat up the water
that's your bathhouse.
What a technology.
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Wow.
- (Sergio) What? - (Rhoda) You better sing harder.
(Sergio) You know what we should do?
One of us will go up there with a camera.
One of us will stay here and we'll speak
or sing really loud and we'll see if we can hear it up there.
Because they say they built them in such a way, you can hear my echo
that you can hear the voice travel everywhere right?
- Right. - You want to sing?
No way.
- All right. - I'll go up there then.
(Sergio) We got people coming to see the show.
(Sergio singing) ♪ Welcome to the amphitheater ♪
(man) Yes.
(woman) Bravo.
- (Sergio) Whoa, we got one. Yeah! - (man) Yes!
(laughing)
- I had the one, bravo! One, bravo! - (Rhoda) Good job babe. High five!
♪ (dramatic music) ♪
(Rhoda)
and, at the same time, it's a very bad location.
Why is that?
Well, a great location because it's right by the Jordan river
and it's also at the point of the Jezreel Valley
so for commuting to the Mediterranean, this is a great place,
this is a connecting place.
But it is placed on top of the Dead Sea Transform
that makes it at a very high risk of earthquakes
and that's exactly what happened in the 8th century.
Hold on, I'm coming.
♪ (dramatic music) ♪
Oh, my goodness, what is over there?
I feel like there's an animal coming at us.
That something obviously hangs out here.
Or someone.
What's going on with my light?
(Sergio) I think it could keep going back in here and down and down.
- Right? - (Rhoda) Probably.
Yes, it looks like there's a door there or a window.
- (Rhoda) Huh. Whoa. - (Sergio) Whoa.
- (Rhoda) [inaudible]. - (Sergio) A bat.
I'm out. Bye.
Bats. I love bats. Whoa.
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(Sergio) How is it?
(Rhoda) Here at this restaurant in Beit Shean it's different
than the Middle Eastern restaurants we've been at
because the salads have different tastes and they're a bit different
with a twist which is pretty cool, and we have some interesting things here
so we have some I'm thinking this is hot pepper,
tahini, baba ganoush, and some eggplant and we have some potato salad.
We have some cornbread. I'm thinking that's mayo.
(Sergio) See this is the Israeli way of eating a meal.
You share a plate, there's a little bit of everything and you share them.
So, it's a great feeling about it. It's nice.
So these are the famous Israeli [shiputin].
They're the shish kebabs, I don't know what you called them
but they have this marination to them that is so unique,
you won't find it anywhere in the world; that is absolutely delicious.
If you're in a Jewish Israeli area in a restaurant where they serve these
you got to get them from chicken. It is spectacular
If you're in an Arab village, get it from lamb.
Their speciality is lamb.
We hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed this food.
No, that's too mean.
Don't worry, I'll deal with him.