March
14
/ 2025
In a discovery that will literally necessitate the rewriting of history, archaeologists digging at the Archaeological Park of Ostia Antica near Rome. Italy have unearthed the remains of the oldest Jewish ritual bath, or mikveh, ever found outside the lands of Israel. This bath dates back to somewhere near the end of the third century, or maybe a bit later, showing that it was constructed during the days of the Roman Empire. This remarkable find at an ancient coastal city in Italy, across the Mediterranean from the Levant, suggests that Ostia may have functioned as an important center of Jewish settlement and religious practice as much 1,700 years ago. Ostia made sense as a destination for those who had left
