In a complex engineering and conservation operation, the Israel Antiquities Authority has lifted an intact 2,000-year-old, 25-ton mikveh, or ritual bath, hole out of the ground in the new Carmei Gat neighborhood of Kiryat Gat. The Second Temple-era bath was transferred for safekeeping to the National Treasures Department to protect it from damage during the neighborhood’s development. When construction is completed, the mikveh will be returned and integrated into an open public space at the heart of the neighborhood.
The mikveh provides clear evidence of a Jewish settlement in the area approximately 2,000 years ago. The excavation also uncovered stone measuring vessels, which under Jewish law do not become ritually impure and were widely used by Jews in the Second Temple period. “The Jewish settlement we discovered here is the first and the only known one in this area,” said excavation directors Elena Kogan-Zahavi, Maayan Margulis, and Shira Lifshitz, noting that no Jewish settlement had been known in the seam between the Judean Lowlands and the northern Negev. The Israel Lands Authority financed the salvage excavations at a cost of about 28 million NIS.
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