The ceremonial bath area of the medieval Jewish community is among the sites in a planned subterranean Jewish Museum, in Cologne, Germany.(dpa Photo)
Posted on 05/01/2022 12:59:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Located 14 meters (45.9 feet) underground in Germany's Cologne, a 600 meter subterranean tunnel connects two historic sites – a Roman palace and the city's medieval Jewish quarter – in a new, underground Jewish Museum set to open soon.
It looks like the tower of a castle, with stairs leading down the wall and a glimmer of black water below. This is the mikvah, the ritual bath of Cologne's medieval Jewish community. The museum, located close to Cologne's famous cathedral, is unlike any other. Called MiQua in reference to the mikvah, it will feature a 600-meter route from the ruins of the Roman governor's palace for Lower Germania – now a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site – through the medieval Jewish quarter...
They are still busy, their work accessible through a rickety ladder behind construction fences. Here in their parallel world, British archaeologist Gary White explains the dig covers 2,000 years of history. "You wouldn't find that anywhere else," he says, adding that for him, it is "like a reward for my whole life as an archaeologist."
Cologne has a long history that starts with Agrippa, the general of the Emperor Augustus and friend of biblical King Herod. Back in 19 B.C., he resettled the Roman-friendly Ubian people on the left bank of the Rhine, roughly where White is now standing...
Below ground, you see Roman and medieval walls that intersect, showing how people in the past were in the habit of taking stones from older buildings to create new structures in the absence of quarries for fresh material...
Cologne's Jewish community, the oldest north of the Alps, wasn't a ghetto, but a city within the city, with a synagogue, the mikveh ritual bath, a dance hall and a bakery.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysabah.com ...
The ceremonial bath area of the medieval Jewish community is among the sites in a planned subterranean Jewish Museum, in Cologne, Germany.(dpa Photo)
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