<![CDATA[The secret of the existence of an ancient Jewish ritual bath known as a mikveh, which was discovered three years ago by the residents of the Jerusalem home built atop it, has recently been revealed to the public. The Ein Kerem neighborhood of Jerusalem, which is one of the most holy cities in the world to the Abrahamic faiths, is the home of a very well preserved mikveh thought to be approximately 2,000 years old, according to authorities from the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA). The couple who live in the home first stumbled across the ritual bath during the course of renovations when work crews discovered a large cavity beneath the house where the mikveh had been hidden. The couple, whose names have been withheld from the media for privacy reasons, said that they had not been sure how significant the find was. While the planned construction continued, they had workers install two wooden doors in the floor of their renovated home in order to gain access to the mikveh in the future. The couple then hid the entrance to the bath with a strategically-placed rug. Three years later, with curiosity gnawing at them both, the married couple reached out to the IAA to report their discovery. The authority will help to preserve the mikveh underneath the couple’s home, and the two will not need to relocate. According to IAA archaeologist Amit Reem, the mikveh was likely constructed sometime in the first century BCE, roughly the time period during which the Second Jewish Temple was constructed. The bath itself is largely intact, complete with staircase leading down to a now-dry basin where the pool of water once stood. Other finds within the hidden chamber include stone vessels and shards of pottery that reinforce the construction date of the mikveh. The tradition of the ritual bath continues in Judaism to this day and is used for spiritual purification purposes. The ritual bath plays an especially strong role among Orthodox and Conservative congregations, while most Reform and Re-constructionist branches of Judaism have eschewed the practice as an anachronism of the times. Historians have long turned to Biblical texts to determine whether there was an established Jewish community in Ein Kerem during the first century BCE. Christian lore dictates that John the Baptist was born near the region of Ein Kerem at around the same time that the ritual bath was built; with only sporadic evidence available of Jewish communities existing in Ein Kerem in the past, Reem remarked that the newly-revealed mikveh provides additional physical evidence to supplement ancient historical records. With Jerusalem being such an ancient city, it’s actually fairly common for Jewish antiquities to be uncovered in renovation projects on homes in the area, the archaeologist added – though there’s no concrete figure as to how many of these finds there have been up until now. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Berthold Werner]]>
Ancient Ritual Bath Found Under Jerusalem Home
