ERUSALEM, ISRAEL—A mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath, dating to the first century A.D. was discovered in an underground cave in southern Jerusalem during the construction of a preschool. The walls of the bath were covered in plaster and decorated with images of a boat, palm trees, plants, and a symbol that may be a menorah, and Aramaic inscriptions that had been incised or written with mud or soot. “There is no doubt that this is a very significant discovery. Such a concentration of inscriptions and symbols from the Second Temple period at one archaeological site, and in such a state of preservation, is rare and unique and most intriguing,” Royee Greenwald and Alexander Wiegmann of the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a press release. The images were removed and are being conserved in Israel Antiquities Authority laboratories because they are so sensitive that exposure to air damages them
