When Luigi Maria Calia, a professor of classical archeology, first brought students from the University of Catania to excavate the area of Ostia Antica, an ancient commercial port of Call outside Rome, was not sure what he could find.
The place of digging was not explored in modern time, despite the central place near the square that was once a city headquarters for shippers and merchants, and today it is known for its mosaics.
“We thought we would find some warehouses or fluvial ports,” he said. Instead, archaeologists – who have been cracked, and not – have discovered last summer that perhaps the oldest existing example in the ancient Roman world of Mokvah, a Jewish ritual bath. The structure was contrary to the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century.
“Such ancient mouty has never been found” outside Israel “, so this is a very relevant finding,” said Riccardo di Segni, the main rabbi in Rome. He added that the discovery contributed to the further illumination of the rich history of Jews In Rome and Ostia Antica.
The Jews first came to Rome in the second century BC, and inhabited the city and its surroundings, including Ostia, half an hour train ride outside the capital.
Rome and Ostia to date are marked with the remains of Jewish heritage: a Menorah on relief From the port of Tito the first century; Jewish catacombs; Judicial inscriptions of the Roman era and synagogue in Ostia Antica.
The “structural and formal characteristics of” the room found in Osia, with the pool deep enough to immerse themselves, are reminiscent of a Jewish ritual bath, said Alessandro D’Alessio, director of Ostia Antica, today an archeological place. At the point of the pool, there was an oil lamp with a menore character that archaeologists said she helped confirm his identification.
The finding came out of the first excavation campaign in decades directly conducted under the auspices of the archaeologist Ostia Antica. Mikhih was located in a “big and rich home” or home, probably two or more stories high, Professor Calò said. The kitchens, larina and two furnaces were also dug, as well as parts of the porch that opened into other rooms.
The home was inhabited until the sixth century and then abandoned. Professor Calia has said that over the centuries the excavated rooms were filled with a “monstrous amount of material”, including fragments of tiles with fresco paintings that archaeologists would try to reconstruct.
“We found a mikva, hopefully there will be a synagogue, but I can’t know yet,” the professor said in an interview.
“There are still a lot of excavation,” Mr. D’Alessio told reporters. The excavations will start again in June.
The Jewish presence in Ostia has long been documented. While setting an electric pipeline southeast of Ostia Antica in 2009, workers came across First -century inscription testify to the presence of the Jews there. It is believed to be the oldest inscription relating to Jews in Italy, said Marina Lo Blundo, an archeologist from Ostia Antica.
In 1961, one of the oldest famous synagogues in the Roman world was discovered during the construction of the highway to the new Fiumicino Airport. This synagogue dates to the middle of the fourth century, probably destroyed in the earthquake in 443 and renewed to use up to sixth, said L. Michael White, director of the excavation of the Ostia synagogue.
“We have a fair amount of evidence that there must be a Jewish community in Ostia since the second century onwards,” he said in a telephone conversation. “Our building has been transformed into a synagogue somewhere in the late fourth century” probably using materials from another synagogue in Ostia, he added. “This was a Jewish community that was not hiding,” he said.
The synagogue is relatively far from the modern entrance to Ostia Antica, a bit hiking to see some of the contemporary works of art that have been made for a place in the last two decades. Ever since the artistic project of synagogue began in 2002, dozens of artists participated.
“It’s a magical place,” Adachiara Zavi, president of the Arte in Memoria Association, which organizes Biennial artistic project. She said she hoped she would include mics in future projects.
But not all accept new findings as further evidence of the Jewish presence.
Based on his experience, Professor White said he would be “a little careful to call” new to find a Jewish ritual bath “while there is no more evidence.”
In the synagogue, he dug a space that previous archaeologists identified as a mouty and found “a room for ritual ablution in his last phase, but it’s not a mom,” he said. In the Roman world, there were all kinds of pools, including swimming pools, or nymphaeuma, and even Christian baptisms, he said.
Rabbi Di Segni said when a presentation he was sure that a new find would ask questions.
Scholarshipists are usually critical, he said. “I’m sure the beginning of tomorrow we can expect a discussion among archaeologists.”
