New ruins from a 1,500-year-old Jewish town

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Israeli archaeologists digging on the route of a planned highway have found new ruins from a 1,500-year-old Jewish town..

The remains of two Jewish ritual baths and two public buildings were uncovered.. Both of the public buildings feature raised platforms along the walls facing Jerusalem, archaeologists say — a trademark feature of Jewish houses of prayer...

The existence of the town was known to scholars from archaeological surveys, but the findings show it was more substantial than had been previously thought...

The remains also indicate that the area was home to a cluster of Jewish settlements at the time — the final years of Byzantine control and the first decades after the Islamic conquest in the 630s CE.