Bet She'an Of particular interest to us at this site were the columns that were strewn about. They were found buried in sand and are very well preserved. It looks to us as if the marble was powdered into cement and poured into molds, although this was said to be not possible. One of the most impressive surviving structures is its Roman Theater, estimated to have been built around 200 A.D. It looks like it would have held around 8000 people. Excavations which only started in 1921 unearthed evidence that it was an Egyptian provincial capital in the 14th to 12th centuries B.C.