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Ritual baths or bathtubs? A profusion of stepped bathing pools such as this one, unearthed by an excavation team directed by Eric Meyers, Carol Meyers and Kenneth Hoglund, have been found in the ancient Galilean town of Sepphoris. Some scholars believe they were simply bathtubs, but others, including Eric Meyers, claim that they were mikva’ot, ritual immersion pools built in accordance with Jewish law. Author Ronny Reich argues that the Sepphoris installations have so much in common with mikva’ot found in other communities that they must be acknowledged as mikva’ot. If he is correct, the large number of mikva’ot in Sepphoris indicates that the town had a sizable Jewish population.