As they worked, the team uncovered a smaller rectangular room with a wide set of steps leading down to a well. Archaeologists identified it as an ancient Jewish ritual bath, known as a mikveh, dating back at least 1,400 years.

Instead, the archaeologists — budding and not — last summer uncovered what may be the oldest existing example in the ancient Roman world of a mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath. They have tentatively dated the structure to the late fourth or early fifth century.