RT Article
T1 "Miqwaʾot" in the Necropolis of Beth Sheʿarim
JF Israel exploration journal
VO 60
IS 1
SP 72
OP 88
A1 Amit, David
A1 Adler, Yonatan
LA English
PB Soc.
YR 2010
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1802281371
AB Three stepped water installations were discovered within the grounds of the Beth Sheʿarim necropolis during excavations in the 1940s and 1950s, directed by Benjamin Mazar and Nahman Avigad. A reexamination of these installations has revealed that they served as ancient ritual baths ("miqwaʾot"), which functioned as an integral part of the third–fourth-century CE Jewish cemetery. This reevaluation was aided by an inspection of the plans of the original excavations, published here for the first time. The practice of situating ritual baths adjacent to tombs, which prima facie would appear to run counter to standard halakhic norms, is, in fact, well grounded in the halakhic tradition reflected in the Talmudic literature.