Ancient Jewish ritual bath from time of Jesus lifted intact from Israeli construction site

Israeli archaeologists lifted a 2,000-year-old Jewish ritual bath weighing about 25 tons out of the ground in one piece this summer. Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists say the find points to a Jewish settlement previously unknown to scholars.

The authority announced the operation Sept. 17, The Times of Israel reported. The Second Temple-period mikveh turned up during salvage excavations ahead of construction in the Carmei Gat neighborhood of Kiryat Gat, a southern Israeli city. A crane moved it in July to the authority’s National Treasures Department storehouse in Beit Guvrin to protect it from damage during building work.

Four conservators spent about two weeks exposing the structure, then drilled beneath it and inserted steel beams to support it. Because the crane had to reach the bath from a distance, the team needed one with a 300-ton lifting capacity. The mikveh is about 13 feet wide, so crews also used a wide transport vehicle and closed the road for the trip to Beit Guvrin. Conservators covered the bath’s fragile plaster walls with gauze and adhesives and reinforced the structure with foam.

“Once you lift up a structure like this, there is no going back,” said Eyal Kaho, the senior authority conservator who led the operation.

The excavation directors said the settlement is the first and only known Jewish site in the area between the Judean Lowlands and the northern Negev. Archaeologists said it appears to have been abandoned during the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the second century, and a different population apparently resettled it about 500 years later, in the Byzantine period. Excavators also found stone measuring vessels, which Jews widely used during the Second Temple period because Jewish law held that stone could not become ritually impure.

The Israel Land Authority paid for the excavation, which cost 28 million shekels, or about $9.4 million. Once construction is finished, the mikveh will return to Carmei Gat as part of an open public space. Israel’s heritage minister, Amichay Eliyahu, said the operation reflects a national commitment to preserving heritage sites during rapid development.

Jewish ritual baths were used for purification during the Second Temple period, the era in which Jesus lived. Author Dinesh D’Souza, who spoke with Fox News Digital ahead of the release of his book “The Stones Cry Out,” said that “in some ways, it brings the Bible to life.” In a video interview, the Christian apologist said biblical archaeology can authenticate the Bible’s historicity, though not its theology or miracles.