A Jewish person living during the Second Temple period — roughly 516 BCE to 70 CE — was required to immerse in a mikveh before entering the Temple. As a result, ritual baths were built throughout Jerusalem, near main roads, public buildings, and private homes, forming an essential part of daily life in the holy city.
One of those mikvehs has now been uncovered in an extraordinary location — hidden beneath the Western Wall Plaza. Hewn directly into the bedrock during the final days of the Second Temple period, the mikveh lay sealed for nearly 2,000 years.
The rectangular ritual bath measures about 10 feet in length (3.05 meters), 4 feet 5 inches in width (1.35 meters), and 6 feet 1 inch in height (1.85 meters). Its walls were carefully plastered, and four hewn steps descend into the pool from the southern side.
The mikveh was burned during the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. As Roman forces set the city ablaze and destroyed the Second Temple, ash and debris sealed the ritual bath beneath layers of destruction, preserving it for nearly two thousand years.
“This was a Temple city,” explained excavation director Ari Levy of the Israel Antiquities Authority. “Daily life in Jerusalem revolved around ritual purity. That reality shaped how people lived, what they used, and how the city itself was built.”
Archaeologists also uncovered numerous pottery vessels, along with stone vessels characteristic of the Jewish population living in Jerusalem on the eve of the destruction. Stone vessels were commonly used because, under Jewish law, they do not contract ritual impurity.
The mikveh was discovered just steps from where pilgrims once entered the Temple — near Robinson’s Arch to the south and the Great Bridge to the north. Its location places it along one of Jerusalem’s main pilgrimage routes, where worshippers would prepare themselves before ascending to the Temple Mount.
“Jerusalem should be remembered as a Temple city,” Levy added. “As such, many aspects of daily life were adapted to this reality, and this is reflected especially in the meticulous observance of the laws of ritual impurity and purity by the city’s residents and leaders.”
Israel’s Minister of Heritage, Rabbi Amichai Eliyahu, noted the discovery offers a deeper understanding of Jerusalem’s past.
“The exposure of the ritual bath beneath the Western Wall Plaza strengthens our understanding of how deeply intertwined religious life and daily life were in Jerusalem during the Temple period,” Eliyahu explained. “This moving discovery, made just ahead of the fast of the Tenth of Tevet. The Tenth of Tevet is a Jewish fast day that commemorates the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 588 BCE, a chain of events that eventually led to the destruction of the First Temple.
Mordechai (Suli) Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, said the find carries powerful symbolism.
“The exposure of a Second Temple period ritual bath beneath the Western Wall Plaza, with ashes from the destruction at its base, testifies like a thousand witnesses to the ability of the people of Israel to move from impurity to purity, from destruction to renewal.”
