1,900-Year-Old Mikveh Found in Israel — and World War II Graffiti
A highway expansion project in Israel has led to the discovery of a nearly 2,000-year-old mikvah.
The ritual bath was discovered at Ha-Ela Junction, near the city of Beit Shemesh, during archaeological excavations conducted prior to widening Highway 38, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a news release.
In addition to the 1,900-year-old mikvah, archaeologists discovered fragments of pottery vessels and a large 1,700-year-old water cistern whose ceiling bore graffiti engraved by two World War II-era Australian soldiers.
Assaf Peretz, an archaeologist and historian with the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the soldiers left their names — Cpl. Phillip William Scarlett and Patrick Raphael Walsh — serial numbers and the date, May 30, 1940. They belonged to a division that was stationed in prestate Israel during the British Mandate and training for combat in France, but France surrendered before the troops were ready and the soldiers were ultimately sent to Egypt in October 1940.
The Australian unit would fought at the front in the Western Desert, Peretz reported after researching the names in the Australian government archives.
“If the relatives of these people are acquainted with the story, we’ll be happy if they contact us and we’ll share with them the warm greetings left behind by Scarlett and Walsh,” the news release said.
Yoav Tsur, excavation director on behalf of the authority, said in the release, “The finds from this excavation allow us to reconstruct a double story: about the Jewish settlement in the second century CE, probably against the background of the events of the Bar Kokhba revolt, and another story, no less fascinating, about a group of Australian soldiers who visited the site c. 1,700 years later and left their mark there.”
At the authority’s request,the Netivei Israel Company, which is widening Highway 38, has agreed to alter the construction plan in order to preserve the finds there and rehabilitate them.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30