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View of the a stepped ritual bath from the Late Second Temple Period. Note the steps that lead down into the ritual bath (miqvah). Our guide suggested that this ritual bath may have been used by the priests that served in the Temple itself. But, since it looks like it would have been difficult to immerse oneself in this bath/pool/basin, our guide said that an alternative view is that it was a place where ritual vessels were washed (purified?). It seems to me that this bath/pool is very similar in design to the larger one that was found by Benjamin Mazar south of the Temple Mount.
This large ritual bath is from the late Second Temple Period (New Testament era) and is located on the lower eastern slope of the Western Hill—west of the Temple Mount proper.
