Fire-blackened 2,000-year-old mikveh is a portal into 70 CE Roman conquest of Jerusalem |
Some 2,000 years ago, as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE, their army set the great Jewish Temple on fire. The blaze destroyed the building and its surroundings, as the conquest put an end to Jewish life in the city for centuries to come.
Two millennia later, the fire’s marks and ashes are still clearly visible on a Jewish ritual bath, known as a mikveh in Hebrew, that has been unearthed just steps away from the Temple Mount, in a discovery announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Western Wall Heritage Foundation on Monday.
“Jerusalem was not a city with a temple, but a temple with a city,” IAA excavation director Ari Levy told The Times of Israel in the archaeological excavation beneath the Western Wall Plaza.
The discovery marks the first time archaeologists at the excavation, conducted by the IAA in cooperation with the Western Wall Foundation, have identified the burned layer from the 70 CE destruction.
“There were many ritual baths around this area, because before one was allowed to enter the Temple, one had to purify oneself in the mikveh. This was true for Jews who lived permanently within the city, and also for Jewish pilgrims who came three times a year for [the Jewish festivals of] Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.”
Accessible through four steep steps, the structure — measuring 3.05 meters in length, 1.35 meters in width, and 1.85 meters in height — bears a striking resemblance to modern Jewish ritual baths.
While Jewish ritual purity laws essentially........