Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Late-antique ritual bath excavated in Ostia (Rome)

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: Ancient Jewish ritual bath discovered in Ostia Antica Archaeological Park (Redazione, Finestre sull'Arte).
The investigations focused mainly on the so-called Area A, located in the central area of the city, near the ancient course of the Tiber River. The area is bounded on the west by the Great Horrea, on the south by the sanctuary of the Four Temples, the Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres and the Domus of Apuleius, and on the east by the Piazzale delle Corporazioni. Despite its strategic location, the area had never been explored and was a perfect stratigraphic basin that was still intact.

During the excavations, within a large and sumptuous building discovered here and already extensively unearthed, a small semi-hypogeous space with an underlying well for rising or otherwise drawing groundwater, in which a mikveh, or Jewish purifying ritual bath, can in all probability be recognized, among the remains of its component rooms and some black-and-white tile floor mosaics. This semi-hypogean space, rectangular with a semicircular apse on the east side, shows several construction phases. ...

Bold-font emphasis in original.

Based on associated artifacts, the initial assessment is that the mikveh dates from the fourth to sixth centuries CE.

Over at Variant Readings, Brent Nongbri notes the discovery, with background and comments: A Newly Discovered mikveh at Ostia.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.