Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SCYTHOPOLIS

(Gk. Skythópolis)

A Decapolis city (Pliny Nat. hist. 5.74). Nysa Scythopolis, containing Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and early Arab archaeological materials, is located at the foot of the tell of Beth-shean (Tell el-µuṣn, 1977.2124). A wall surrounded the city in the Byzantine period, and a necropolis surrounded parts of the city.

Excavations have revealed that the general plan of the city was established in the 2nd century a.d., with main streets extending at northeast-southwest and southeast-northwest angles due to the limitations of the terrain. Along the streets numbers of public buildings had been erected. A Roman theater, elaborately decorated with marble and granite (late 2nd-3rd centuries; there is evidence also of a 1st-century theater there), was built to the south of the NE-SW street; its scaenae frons, decorated with marble and granite, had a facade of two or three stories, and was adorned with columns, capitals, and entablature. Flanked by a colonnaded, covered sidewalk and a row of about 20 shops, the colonnaded NE-SW street (Palladius Street, from a dedicatory inscription), which was paved with rectangular basalt blocks, ran from the theater some 180 m. (590 ft.) to the foot of the Beth-shean tell. Along the west side of this NE-SW street have been excavated remains of a propylaeum which led to the large T-shaped bathhouse complex; and next to it an odeon (or bouleuterion), with orchestra paved with flagstones.

In the civic center near the crossroads was a temple (possibly for Dionysus or Tyche) facing northwest, with monumental stairs extending up to a four-columned prostyle which led to the temple itself; in the plaza in front of the temple was a circular pedestal for a statue (the pedestal’s Greek inscription states that the citizens of this Coele-Syria city dedicated it to Marcus Aurelius). Just to the east on this SE-NW street (the Valley Street) are ruins of a nymphaeum/fountain, including a 4th-century Greek inscription on the architrave; other architectural ornamentation there points to an earlier late 2nd-century Roman phase. Just east of the nymphaeum is a 4 m. (13 ft.)-high stone platform for a columnar monument, and south of it is a 2nd-century basilica building with an apse and four rows of columns and corner pillars to sustain the ceiling. Farther to the southeast and just to the south of the SE-NW street, a colonnaded stoa (2nd century) was built, ca. 56 m. (185 ft.) long, with 18 monolithic, limestone columns and Ionic capitals, over which a series of shops was later built in the Late Byzantine period. Another broad colonnaded street (the eastern street) with covered sidewalks (total, 23 m. [75 ft.] wide), and with shops bordering the street, extended from the Roman bridge crossing the Harod River and ran southwest toward an open square in front of the columnar monument on the SE-NW street; and an additional street, from as far as the amphitheater on the south, came to join the SE-NW street, east of the open square. To the west of the city center a villa and a synagogue (“House of Leontius”) were excavated, the latter featuring a mosaic floor depicting a vine-trellis and a menorah.

Just south of the theater are remains of a large, rectangular amphitheater (possible 2nd century) which was used for gladiatorial games.

See Beth-shan, Beth-shean.

Bibliography. G. Foerster, “Beth-Shean at the Foot of the Mound,” NEAEHL 1:223-35; “Glorious Beth-Shean,” BARev 16/4 (1990): 16-31.

W. Harold Mare

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SCYTHOPOLIS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)