Archaeologists working at Mount Zion have discovered what appears to be an upper-class neighborhood from the Jerusalem of 2,000 years ago, located at what was then the center of the city near King Herod’s palace and the home of the high priest Caiaphas. Philippe Bohstrom writes:
One of the houses had its own cistern, a mikveh (ritual bath), a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and a chamber with three bread ovens. Inside a room found with its ceiling intact was a bathtub—an extremely rare luxury that commoners of the time could not afford. Bathtubs, as opposed to ritual dipping pools, have so far been found only at King Herod’s palaces in Masada and Jericho, and in the so-called “Priestly Mansion” in [what is now] the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. . . .
A ritual stone cup with a priestly inscription, used for purification rituals, also found there supports [some archaeologists’] theory that this area was the priestly quarter of ancient Jerusalem.
Read more on Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.730486