Abstract
AbstractWhile scholars have known about the earliest ritual immersion pool in the Buried Palace at Jericho for more than thirty years, they have yet to produce a clear understanding of why the Hasmoneans began building ritual immersion pools when they did. Further, scholars have also failed to acknowledge the innovative nature of these spaces. I argue that we can best resolve these shortcomings by understanding the construction of the earliest known purpose-built ritual immersion pool (PBRIP) by John Hyrcanus I as an innovation driven by the political and social disruptions of the late second century BCE, and that once he had pioneered the idea of a PBRIP that it rapidly gained popularity. This article contextualizes the PRBIPs within the framework of Hellenistic palatial architecture and Second Temple literature rather than rabbinic literature.
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