Archaeologists Unearth Oldest Jewish Ritual Bath Found in Europe
Europe|Archaeologists Unearth Oldest Jewish Ritual Bath Found in Europe
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/world/europe/ancient-rome-port-excavation-jewish-ritual-bath.html
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Discovered outside Rome, the bath, which is thought to be a mikvah, could be more than 1,600 years old.
When Luigi Maria Caliò, a classical archaeology professor, first brought students from the University of Catania to excavate an area of Ostia Antica, the ancient commercial port of call outside Rome, he wasn’t sure what he might find.
The dig site had not been explored in modern times, despite its central location next to a square that was once the city’s headquarters for shippers and traders and is today renowned for its mosaics.
“We thought we’d find some warehouses or a fluvial port,” he said. Instead, the archaeologists — budding and not — last summer uncovered what may be the oldest existing example in the ancient Roman world of a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath. They have tentatively dated the structure to the late fourth or early fifth century.
“Such an antique mikvah has never been found” outside Israel, “so it’s a very relevant find,” said Riccardo Di Segni, Rome’s chief rabbi. He added that the discovery contributed to further illuminating the rich history of Jews in Rome and Ostia Antica.
Jews first came to Rome in the second century B.C., and inhabited the city and its environs, including Ostia, a half-hour train ride outside the capital city.
Rome and Ostia to this day are pockmarked with remnants of Jewish heritage: a menorah on the bas-relief of the first-century Arch of Titus; Jewish catacombs; sundry Roman-era inscriptions, and a synagogue at Ostia Antica.