Archaeologists Just Uncovered a Missing Piece of Jesus’s Jerusalem

A newly discovered complex beside the Temple Mount reveals what Jewish pilgrims encountered before entering the Temple

The monumental southern steps leading towards the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jewish pilgrims approaching the Temple during the Second Temple period would have moved through this landscape. Photo: Assaf Avraham, via Wikimedia Commons.

This week, archaeologists in Jerusalem announced the discovery of something that immediately caught my attention.

Immediately south of the Temple Mount, near one of its principal ancient entrances, a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem uncovered a large complex of ritual baths dating to the late Second Temple period. At its centre is a monumental plastered pool, alongside three large mikvaot, a paved courtyard and an elaborate system for moving enormous quantities of water through the site.

One of the baths survives to its full height, more than four metres from floor to its vaulted stone ceiling.

It is an extraordinary piece of archaeology. But what interests me most is not simply what has been found. It is where it has been found, and what that location helps us imagine. The complex was built in the early first century, during the lifetime of Jesus, and suddenly, one of those tiny phrases in the Gospels begins to look very different.

Jesus entered the Temple.