Archaeologists Uncover Monumental Ritual Baths Where Pilgrims Purified Before the Temple
The 2,000-year-old complex at the foot of Jerusalem's Temple Mount includes a bath still standing to its full 14-foot height under its original stone vault. Coins show it died with the city in 70 CE.
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered a monumental complex of ritual baths at the foot of the Temple Mount that was most likely used by Jewish pilgrims to purify themselves before entering the Temple, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced this week.
The complex dates to the late Second Temple period, between the first century BCE and 70 CE. It includes three large ritual baths, known in Hebrew as mikva'ot, a monumental plastered pool, a paved plaza and an extensive water system. One of the baths survives to its full height of 4.2 meters (14 feet), still capped by its vaulted stone ceiling and the shaft that fed it water. A Second Temple-era structure preserved from floor to ceiling is exceedingly rare in Jerusalem, especially at such a central site.
The find comes from the Ophel, the area just south of the Temple Mount in the Old City, near the Triple Gate, one of the main entrances to the ancient Temple compound. The excavation was led by professors Uzi Leibner and Orit Peleg-Barkat of the university's Institute of Archaeology after five seasons of digging, in cooperation with the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology.
"A monumental ashlar structure devoted entirely to ritual purification, situated at the foot of the Temple Mount and near one of its gates, is a truly unparalleled phenomenon," the two directors said. The complex, they added, "goes to the heart of our research into the archaeology of Second Temple-period pilgrimage: how the area immediately south of the Temple Mount was designed to accommodate the many pilgrims who came to Jerusalem."
At the center, built in the early first century CE, is a plastered pool about 12 by 9.5 meters (39 by 31 feet) with steps descending from all four sides. Northwest of it stands a finely built structure of dressed stone with four rooms, three of them large public ritual baths, two with carefully cut stone steps. A forecourt paved with large, smooth slabs sits between the pool and the building. Altogether the complex covers about 280 square meters (3,000 square feet).
Drainage channels, preserved in places more than 2 meters (6.6 feet) high, carried water away toward the Kidron Valley. Their size suggests huge volumes of water moved through the complex, possibly supplied by a permanent source such as a branch of the aqueduct that fed the Temple itself. Jewish law requires immersion in a mikveh fed by natural or flowing water, and large crowds arrived in Jerusalem for the three annual pilgrimage festivals.
The complex met a violent end in the summer of 70 CE, when Roman forces destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. Dozens of coins minted during the First Jewish Revolt against Rome were found on its floors and in the destruction debris.
Beneath it, the team found remains of an even older public purification complex built of dressed stone, with its own large ritual bath, probably from the first century BCE. That points to a long tradition of ritual purification in the area right beside the Temple Mount. The site lies within Jerusalem Walls National Park.
