2,000-year-old ring found in pilgrim's road to Temple Mount

It's annoying to lose your precious baubles in a public pool and probably was just as irksome 2,000 years ago too, when a ring seems to have slipped off the finger of an unwary bather in a mikveh. Or maybe it was taken off for the purposes of the ritual purifying bath, and was forgotten there.

It was announced Sunday that the corroded ring, with a blueish stone, was found by Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists who were digging along the stone-paved stepped street, aka the pilgrim's road. By the standards of today's hands, the ring would probably have fit the average pinkie.

The corroded artifact was found in what seems to be the remains of a mikveh, said the archaeologists Nachshon Zenton, Moran Hajabi, Ari Levy and Dr. Joe Uziel. Ancient Jerusalem sported hundreds of ritual baths, not only for locals but to serve pilgrims en route to the Temple.