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Yinon Shivtiel inside a mikveh in a cave in the Galilee, where Jews sought shelter under Roman rule. [Photo by: Liora Ben Haim]

Were ancient “full-service” bathhouses Bar Mikvehs?

I will ask someone who knows, but I am unaware of kohanim having any special need for mikvahs in the absence of the Temple service.

It would seem more likely to indicate the presence of women or perhaps just the especially pious.

I travelled to the West Bank in 1999. The tour I took was going to an open air market to shop, I was tired and stayed in my hotel room. After a nap, I went out to walk around. Two arab kids asked me if I wanted to see some old skeletons for 5 dollars. I asked them if I could buy them a falafel first ? We had some food and drink. They started arguing in arabic about something until the older boy won out.

They took me into the basement of an ancient house where more arab families lived. They showed me a series of tunnels that led down into a series of burial chambers where I had to stoop low and be careful not to hit my head. As an amateur, I didn't recognize ritual baths as such until later. There were hebrew characters written in these small rooms. Burial boxes were broken and had obviously been looted long, long ago. Incomplete skeletal remains were everywhere.

I was exhausted by all the effort it took just to squeeze into these tiny rooms. I asked the boys if we could stop and rest. They pointed to what they called 'the teepee room'. It was shaped just like a pointed pyramid and featured a vent blackened by ancient fires. People had written their initials and messages in the black soot. Names and dates appeared that were from the 19th Century. There was also a primitive type of tick-tack-toe that only had six boxes, the boys motioned to the act of rolling dice. Later, I learned that these were Roman soldiers who gambled, a popular dice game. We finally left the tunnel complex via a vacant lot behind the ruins of an ancient church. Tour groups that were walking inside the church saw us leave and started asking me questions. I acted like I didn't understand them. I gave the boys some pocket money and wished them Good-bye. When our bus left the hotel next morning both of them were waving and watching me from a crowd of hustlers selling their postage cards and pictures. The little guy ran up to me and handed me an old figurine wrapped in a bunch of newspaper.

Later, I showed it to one of the teaching professors in our group that worked at the British Museum. He looked at it for a real long period of time before asking where I found it. He said it was a valuable funerary figurine, which ancient Roman's used to worship their family ancestors. He convinced me to donate it to his museum.

Stuff and nonsense. Married Jewish women go to the mikveh once a month, seven days after the conclusion of their periods. Thus, the existence of the mikveh more likely indicates that intact families were taking refuge in the caves. Kohanim would need to cleanse themselves before eating such sanctified food as truma and first fruits, and before serving in the Bet Hamikdash. Since they were taking refuge, that would eliminate the latter eventuality, and leave the sanctified fruits, which would still be forbidden to eat if the Israelite who gave it to them was not in a clean state, through touching a dead body, a dead bug, or some other contaminating factor, so while in hiding it’s unlikely they were eating any sanctified foods, either. Married women, in contrast, can not have sex with their husbands until purifying themselves in a mikveh. Men and women have sex in the most trying of circumstances, sometimes especially then. Honestly, these archaeologists are thick sometimes.