Religious Responses to Climate Change in the Southern Levant: Understanding the rise and fall of Jewish ritual purification baths in the Hasmonean-Roman period

This project studies the impact of climatic changes upon Jewish water purification rituals in the southern Levant from around the second century BCE to the third century CE. Starting from the archaeological dataset of hundreds of stepped pools from the region that have been identified as Jewish ritual purification baths, the project explores their rise, upkeep, and transformation through object biography approaches and hydrological modelling. The impact of these changing practices upon religious ideas is explored through a reception study of later written Rabbinic traditions.