Jerusalem family finds 2,000-year old mikveh underneath living room

Ha'aretz ^ | Tammuz 14, 5775 (July 1, 2015) | Nir Hasson

[SunkenCiv]

A Jerusalem family ripping up its living room floor found a staircase lost for 2,000 years, leading to a large ritual bath carved out of bedrock.

It took the family some years to call in the authorities and show them the discovery beneath their house, in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ein Kerem. Throughout the interim, the family blocked off the entrance to the mikveh with wooden doors, and simply continued to live over it.

When they did call in the Israel Antiquities Authority, beneath the doors, the archaeologists found the carved stone staircase leaving to a big mikveh, 3.5 meters in length and 2.4 meters wide, with a depth of 1.8 meters.

The rock-hewn bath was meticulously plastered according to the laws of purity appearing in halacha. The staircase leads to the bottom of the immersion pool.

Carved stone is hard to date, but pottery vessels discovered inside the ritual bath date to the time of the Second Temple (first century CE). The mikveh also shows traces of fire that might constitute evidence of the destruction following the Jewish Revolt of 66-70 CE.

Also attesting to the period were fragments of stone vessels. Those became common during the Second Temple period, because stone cannot be contaminated and remains pure.

In recent years, due to extensive and controversial development work in the area of Ein Karem, many secrets of the neighborhood's long history have been uncovered. A complex water system was discovered alongside the spring, which also dates from the Second Temple period...

"The discovery of the ritual bath reinforces the hypothesis there was a Jewish settlement from the time of the Second Temple located in the region of what is today 'Ein Kerem," Re'em said.

[Phinneous]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

Some just don’t ‘take a knee’ to the language. Do U C? (Or do you CE? O, I BCE D B. E S A Q T)