A mysterious message written on the walls of an ancient Jewish ritual bath has, so far, defeated attempts to be translated, archaeologists say.
The writing on the walls of the 2,000-year-old ritual bath, or mikveh, was discovered during construction work for a nursery school in Jerusalem.
An excavation revealed the bath inside an ancient underground cave, along with an anteroom with benches that led to it.
The mysterious message on its walls, including symbols and inscriptions, was written using soot and mud and also included carvings, the Israel Antiquities Authority reported.
The message is in ancient Aramaic, the language spoken at the time of Jesus, and written in cursive Hebrew script as was customary in the Second Temple period, which lasted from 530 B.C. until the destruction by the Romans of the second Jewish Temple in 70 A.D., the researchers say.
"Such a concentration of inscriptions and symbols from the Second Temple period at one archaeological site, and in such a state of preservation, is rare and unique and most intriguing," say Royee Greenwald and Alexander Wiegmann, directors of the archaeological excavation work.
What the inscription says is, at present, a mystery, the researchers say; some of the inscriptions may be names, and many of the symbols, including boats and palm trees, are common visual art depictions from the Second Temple Period.
"On the one hand the symbols can be interpreted as secular, and on the other as symbols of religious significance and deep spirituality," the researchers suggest.
One symbol that may depict a menorah, the seven-branched candelabra that stood in biblical Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, is unexpected, they note, because at the time, people abstained from portraying sacred temple objects in art.
The wall inscriptions are extremely fragile, and exposure to air after being excavated could damage them, so after beginning preservation efforts at the site, the section of wall was removed in its entirely from the ritual bath and taken to conservation laboratories at the Israel Antiquities Authority, the researchers say.
After further treatment, stabilization and study, there are plans to have the spectacular and mysterious inscriptions put on public display, the authority says.
"There is no doubt that this is a very significant discovery," Greenwald and Weigmann say.
