Israel is bulging with Roman ruins. You can find them everywhere, whether you're in the heart of Jerusalem, in the deserts by the Dead Sea or Makhtesh Ramon, by the Mediterranean coast, or even in the far north of the Golan Heights. By far the most impressive, based on what's left of them, is Bet Shean. The site, which I visited in April 2018, is about an hour's drive south of Tiberias, passing by Deganya and Belvoir Fortress, but I didn't take those detours. With a packed itinerary for the day, I went straight to Bet Shean first thing in the morning. From the entrance, there's a great view of the city in its full glory, backed by the towering tel behind. I got to tour the theatre (grand and relatively well-preserved, though with a wooden stage and no back wall), the cardo (where rocks show the age of the structure, the black basalt pavements preceding the white marble columns lining both sides), and the bathhouse (with archaic heating technology intact, the little stubs hold up the then-floor while water was heated underneath).

It's an impressive ancient site especially considering that the restored area is only about a tenth the size of the Roman city. I was particularly impressed by the sophistication of the bathhouse. Bet Shean was also the only time I got to step on authentic Roman floor mosaics, though better preserved ones or more intricate ones can be found in Bet Alfa next door, nearby Zippori, and across the border in Jordan. Now, while this is all impressive, we have to realize that Bet Shean's chances on getting WHS status based on it simply being an impressive, even outstanding, Roman city ruin is next to nothing, especially when neighboring Jerash, a more impressive Decapolis city, isn't on the list yet either. I think the key to inscription is the show of history here. Though I didn't have time to explore the tel, Bet Shean's uniqueness, in my eyes, lies in its historic continuity as an Egyptian-Canaanite-Roman city and how each civilization has left a lasting mark on it today. This, together with its impressiveness of preservation and grandiosity as a Roman city, might just make the cut. Personally, it isn't hard to see the OUV of such a magnificent site as this, even if it was overshadowed a bit by my visit to Jerash a few days later.