MiQua.LVR-Jüdisches Museum im Archäologischen Quartier Köln
Medieval ritual bath and synagogue ruins beneath a town hall square, reached by a stone stairwell to groundwater.
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About this audio guide
This guide to MiQua in Cologne begins in nineteen fifty-six, when workers digging beneath the town hall square broke into a stone stairwell leading down to still black water: the rediscovered medieval mikveh of one of the oldest Jewish communities north of the Alps. It traces the bath's origins to the seven hundreds, the Jewish law requiring immersion in living water drawn straight from the ground, and the generations who used these steps before the Sabbath and festivals. Archaeologist Otto Doppelfeld led that nineteen fifty-six dig; stand above the stairwell and picture the water still down there.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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