BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Second Temple Era Mikveh Found…then Moved

Cleanliness is next to godliness

A remarkable archaeological discovery has been made in Kiryat Gat (southern Israel), during excavations ahead of construction in the new Carmei Gat neighborhood. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) uncovered a large ritual bath (mikveh) dating to nearly 2,000 years ago, at the end of the Second Temple period. The IAA says the discovery provides evidence for a previously unknown early Jewish settlement in an area between the Judean lowlands and the northern Negev.

The mikveh—a purpose-built, plastered pool with steps—weighs about 25 tons and measures roughly 13 feet across. Though not the largest mikveh ever found, it is still quite sizable. The team lifted the entire structure from the ground and transported it to the National Treasures Department for safekeeping. The operation required steel supports, protective materials to stabilize its ancient plaster, a 300-ton crane, and a specially configured transport vehicle. Once construction in the neighborhood is complete, the IAA plans to return the mikveh and incorporate it into a public space.

For context, a mikveh was a pool used for immersion, built to address Jewish laws of ritual purity. Although such baths are not directly referenced in the Hebrew Bible, they were an outgrowth of biblical ideas about water, purity, and ritual washing. Biblical texts repeatedly describe washing as part of restoring ritual purity and preparing a person to participate in sacred activities. As such, the mikveh became a recognizable feature of many Judean sites during the Second Temple period.

The excavation also reportedly uncovered stone vessels, sometimes called chalk vessels, which provide another archaeological marker of Jewish purity practices. Stone vessels were regarded in Jewish law as resistant to ritual impurities and became especially common among Jewish communities during the late Second Temple period. Their presence alongside a mikveh therefore strengthens the IAA’s interpretation that the settlement had a Jewish population.

According to the excavation directors, the settlement was apparently abandoned during the Bar-Kokhba Revolt in the second century CE and then reoccupied roughly 500 years later during the Byzantine period.

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Lauren K. McCormick is an assistant editor at Biblical Archaeology Review and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions, visual culture, and the Bible. She holds degrees in religion from Syracuse University, Duke University, New York University, and Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship on religion and the public conversation at Princeton University.

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