BEIT SHEARIM.

Following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E, the centre of Jewish life was forced to move to the relative safety of the north. Beit Shearim became an important Jewish city at the end of the 2nd century C,E, as a result of the earlier move northward, The city became the seat of the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish religious and judical body in Israel. The city attracted the leading religious academics of the time including the renowned Rabbi Judah Hanassl, who apart from establishing the First Saruhedrln in the city, compiled the Mishna - the vast collection of precepts that are the basis of the Talmud. Jewish life in Beit She.arim flourished during the next two hundred years. A large network of subterranean catacombs was established in the city and became the major Jewish burial place in the world following the sacking of Jerusalem. The option for Jews to bury their dead on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives was for the time being denied them. In the 4th Century the Roman general Gallus destroyed the city and apart from a short period during the Byzantine period the city never flourished again. Although the first excavations of the city took place in 1871 it was not until