25-ton Second Temple-era mikveh lifted intact from Kiryat Gat, Israel

Right · 1A Jewish ritual bath (mikveh) from the Second Temple period, about 2,000 years old, was recently extracted intact from Kiryat Gat, an Israeli city roughly 35 miles southwest of Jerusalem. 1 Right · 2The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced the operation in September, and released pictures showing a crane lifting the roughly 25-ton structure from the excavation site. 1 2 Right · 1The IAA said the removal was meant to protect the structure from damage during the neighbourhood's development work. 1

Right · 1Officials say the mikveh is evidence of a Second Temple-period Jewish settlement in the area that scholars did not previously know of; the dig also turned up stone measuring vessels, which were widely used then because Jewish law did not consider them susceptible to ritual impurity. 1 Right · 2The mikveh is now in temporary state storage at Beit Guvrin; once construction is finished, officials plan to return it to the site, at Carmei Gat, and display it in an open public space in the new neighbourhood (a detail Breitbart attributes to Heritage Daily). 2 1 Right · 1Fox News says the bath dates roughly to the time of Jesus, who as a Jew of that period likely used mikvehs, though Scripture does not explicitly say so. 1

Right · 2Author and Christian apologist Dinesh D'Souza told Fox News Digital the find is remarkable because such baths are usually small, and said biblical archaeology can authenticate the Bible's historicity, though not its theology or miracles. 1 2 Right · 1Breitbart's account draws on Fox News and Heritage Daily and adds a Britannica definition of a mikvah as a pool of natural water used for ritual purity. 2