Archaeologists working at Ostia Antica, an ancient Roman port city, have discovered the oldest Jewish ritual bath outside of the Middle East, along with an oil lamp decorated with a menorah dated to the fifth to sixth centuries.

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.