Herod's alabaster bathtubs were locally made

MATERIAL CULTURE: King Herod the Great bathed in locally made calcite-alabaster bathtubs. Though most high-quality calcite-alabaster items here were thought to be made in Egypt, a new multidisciplinary Israeli study shows otherwise (Judith Sudilovsky, Jerusalem Post).

“These results attest to the fact that the calcite-alabaster industry in Judea in the second half of the first century BC was sufficiently developed and of high enough quality to serve the luxurious standards of Herod, one of the finest builders among the kings of that period,” the researchers concluded in their report.

The story is also covered by Amanda Borschel-Dan in the Times of Israel, with an interview with Ayala Amir: Alabaster for Herod the Great’s lavish bathtubs traced to quarry in Israel. Daughter-father scientific study rules out Egyptian quarries and shows ancient Holy Land industry was potentially much more developed than previously thought.

The latter also links to the open-access underlying article in Nature, which is here.

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