Roman-era Jewish bath in Italy may be oldest outside of Israel, points to vibrant Diaspora

The discovery of what could be the oldest mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath, ever found outside the land of Israel, raises the possibility that some 1,700 years ago, a coastal city near Rome was a center of Jewish life.

If the structure is indeed a mikveh, and its posited dating is confirmed to be between the 3rd and the 5th century CE, it would be the earliest Jewish ritual bath ever discovered in the Diaspora.

Unveiled Tuesday, findings uncovered at Ostia — a major ancient port city 25 kilometers southwest of Rome — could shed fresh light on the Roman Empire’s vibrant Jewish life, a few hundred years after the violent destruction of the Jerusalem Second Temple and the suppression of subsequent attempted revolts.

Archaeological evidence and historical documents indicate that Ostia was home to a great diversity of religions and ethnicities found across the empire. Recently, archaeologists have proven that the melting pot included a flourishing Jewish community, as attested by findings including remains of an impressive synagogue.

However, the discovery of the mikveh has come as a complete surprise.

“In 2022, we began excavating an area next to the headquarters of the trading corporations and the four pagan temples,” Dr. Alessandro D’Alessio, director of the Archaeological Park of Ostia Antica, told The Times of Israel over a phone interview. “Despite its central location, the area had never been dug.”

The expedition was conducted by the team of the Archaeological Park in cooperation with the Università degli Studi di Catania and Politecnico di Bari and with the support of the Museums Directorate of the Italian Culture Ministry.

“Last summer, we found a small chamber in the building we had been uncovering,” D’Alessio said. “The room resembles a well, mounted by a semiapse, and is accessible from the building through some stairs.”

Initially, the archaeologists were not sure how to interpret the findings.

“We speculated that it could be a mikveh, and we invited the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, to examine it,” D’Alessio said. “He was impressed with the structure but could not say with certainty if it was a mikveh.”

The archaeologists also unearthed a hole, likely an access point for a pipe that channeled water into the well to mix it with that of the aquifer — likely used for carrying hot water.

“As we moved forward with the excavation, we had two strokes of luck,” D’Alessio noted. “First, we exposed the structure that would allow people to gradually enter the water instead of just falling or jumping into it. Secondly, at the bottom of the chamber, we found an intact oil lamp bearing Jewish symbols, a menorah [ritual candelabrum], and a lulav [palm branch].”

For D’Alessio and the team excavating the site, the oil lamp confirmed the site’s identity with a fair degree of certainty.

‘A cradle of tolerance’?

The discovery was presented to the public at a high-profile press conference attended, among others, by Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli.

“The discovery of an ancient Jewish ritual bath, or mikveh, in the archaeological park of Ostia Antica strengthens the historical awareness of this place as a true crossroads of coexistence and exchange of cultures, a cradle of tolerance between different peoples who found their union in Roman civilization,” said Giuli.

In the broader archaeology community, some experts call for more caution. L. Michael White, director of the Ostia Synagogue Area Excavations, told The New York Times that he would like to see more evidence before describing the site as a ritual bath since many forms of pools were common in the Roman world.

“I would agree with Michael White’s reservation that based on the little information published, we cannot be sure it is a ritual bath,” Dr. Jodi Magness from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told The Times of Israel. Magness, whose expertise includes Diaspora Judaism in the Roman world, excavated for years at Huqoq in the Galilee, where she uncovered a late Roman-era synagogue.

The oil lamp has helped with the site’s dating since its typology was in use between the end of the 4th and the 5th century, D’Alessio noted.

“We believe the building dates back to the first half of the 3rd century CE based on the mosaics we found,” he said. “The mikveh was added at a different time, but it could have been built as early as the late 3rd century.”

Magness confirmed that if this dating is proven and the structure is indeed a ritual bath, it could be the oldest mikveh discovered outside of Israel, making it hundreds of years earlier than other ritual bath discoveries in Europe.

“The oldest Jewish ritual baths found in the rest of Europe, including in modern-day Italy, such as the one in Syracuse, Sicily, date back to the Early Middle Ages at the earliest, not to Roman times,” D’Alessio noted.

The oil lamp was not the only one retrieved in the building.

“We found an additional two lamps, one very similar to the artifact from the bottom of the mikveh with the depiction of a menorah, the other one engraved with a Christogram [a combination of letters abbreviating the term Jesus Christ],” said D’Alessio. “We know that during that period, the Jewish and Christian communities in Rome were still very close; therefore, finding both symbols in the same environment is not surprising.”

Where was the mikveh housed?

The purpose of the building is still shrouded in mystery.

“Our first hypothesis is that the structure was a luxurious private residence, but it could have also been a public building,” said D’Alessio. “We uncovered at least six rooms. Two of them are equipped with an oven to cook. We also found a latrine and another room that was probably a kitchen. These rooms overlooked a courtyard facing south. A staircase suggests that there were at least two floors.”

Asked whether it is possible that the building was a synagogue, D’Alessio said it is very unlikely in light of its structure.

Nobody knows who the owner of the building was, or whether the structure, which was in use for at least 150 years, was passed down through generations of the same family or whether it changed owners decades after it was originally erected, perhaps bought by a Jewish family who decided to build a private ritual bath.

“Everything is possible; we can only speculate about it,” said D’Alessio.

The building was much more central in the city than the synagogue, which stood just a few meters from the seashore.

“The synagogue faced the direction of Jerusalem and its architectural elements featured many Jewish symbols, the menorah, the palm trees, the shofar [ram horn] and the etrog [citron],” noted D’Alessio.

The researcher pointed out that the synagogue also presents a mikveh-related enigma: No Jewish ritual bath associated with the structure has been uncovered yet.

“We do not know whether this is because we have not found it in the excavations, because it was destroyed, or because the worshippers just used the ocean since it was so close,” said D’Alessio. (Jewish law permits ritual purification in any body of natural water.)

A community from before the fall of Jerusalem

The first archaeological evidence of a Jewish presence in Ostia dates back to the 1st century CE: The archaeologists uncovered an inscription bearing several names and the word iudaei (Jews in Latin) at the Pianabella Necropolis, which served as the city’s cemetery.

However, historical sources suggest that members of Ostia’s elites might have been Jewish or of Jewish descent already in the 1st century BCE. They included Publio Lucilio Gamala, a public official whose last name is associated with the Jewish name Gamla, attested in some burial inscriptions from the same period in Jerusalem, and the family of the Fabii Agrippini, who owned two mansions in Ostia and according to some researchers might have been the patrons of the synagogue.

D’Alessio hopes that future excavations will illuminate the extraordinary story of Ostia’s Jewish community, starting with the building where the mikveh was found.

“In our next season of excavation this coming summer, we will focus on the building’s courtyard,” he said. “Our goal is also to secure the area so that we can open it to the general public.”