ANCIENT TIBERIAS currently consists of an old quarry, garbage heaps, a sewage treatment plant, and ancient ruins. But it's slated to be rebuilt as a new city and the ancient site is about to be excavated. Excerpt from the Ha'aretz article:

Meanwhile, the vision remains somewhat distant. Ancient Tiberias, some 250 dunams close to the Kinneret beach south of the city, is home to a sewage treatment plant, with mounds of garbage scattered among the ancient remains. Some of the finds have already been reburied due to neglect.

But this doesn't bother Professor Yizhar Hirschfeld of Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, director of the excavation due to start in two weeks. No significant damage has been caused, Hirschfeld said. The scrap metal and garbage may have even protected the antiquities, he added.

"This is one of the most beautiful sites in the world, of the greatest significance for Jewish history," Hirschfeld told participants at a conference yesterday on saving the cultural and material heritage of Tiberias. "Few other sites in the Roman Empire were more important," he added.

Hirschfeld spoke of the markets and the bathhouse, which figured prominently in the sayings of the ancient Jewish sages, where "wise men would sit and spin tales." He showed the location of the basilica in which the Sanhedrin had its headquarters; the city's walls and its theater; the study house and the beautiful mosaics of the synagogues.