THREE MAJOR geographical factors have made Bet Shean one of the most important cities of ancient Palestine. Firstly, the city is located in the middle of the eastern Jezreel Valley (or Bet Shean Valley), a very fertile region densely settled by villages and farms. Secondly, the area enjoys abundant water, a significant factor in this arid country; the city is situated on the Ḥarod River (Wādi Jālūd) and was irrigated by channels and aqueducts that supplied fresh water from several other springs in the region. Thirdly, Bet Shean is located at the crossroads of two international routes: one the main road through the Jezreel Valley from the coast (and from Egypt) towards Syria and Mesopotamia, the other the Jordan Valley road, a commercial and military route connecting Syria and the northern regions with Jerusalem and central Palestine.

These advantages led the rulers of the Land of Israel to settle and fortify Bet Shean during the Bronze and Iron Ages. It was probably Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the first half of the third century B.C. who founded the city, which became in later generations, perhaps under the Seleucids, a Hellenistic polis, a military and commercial post. The new foundation was officially named Nysa-Scythopolis, but usually known as Scythopolis. The town later became an important member of the league of ten Hellenized cities known as the Decapolis. The origins of the Hellenistic settlement were concentrated on the ancient tell of Bet Shean, as well as on Tell Iṣṭaba(Tell Maṣṭaba an elongated hill on the northern edge of Naḥal Ḥarod. The formative period of its development was, however, the Roman period, especially the mid-second century A.D., the peak of the pax Romana in the eastern provinces.

Scythopolis in the late sixth century, the starting point of our discussion, was built above and into the framework of the Roman town. It is, of course, impossible to create an exact picture of the town and its plan in precisely A.D. 565. We can, however, roughly locate our starting point on the graph of the urban development of the town (or at least several of its quarters) in the second half of the sixth century. The end of the period is clear: an enormous earthquake destroyed the city, as well as other sites in Palestine, mostly along the Jordan Valley, on 18 January, A.D. 749, at the very end of the Umayyad period.