In 1993, Christian Arab businessman bought the shop, which lies a few paces from a well where Eastern Orthodox churches believe the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to Jesus.

Its location should have made it a gold mine, but the post-Sept. 11 slump in tourism worldwide, exacerbated locally by 26 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, has knocked the bottom out of the souvenir business in Jesus' traditional hometown.

Gold mine or not, Shama got digging anyway. "We bought the place in a very terrible condition and we wanted to fix it up," he said in a phone interview. "I dug, and eventually I came to granite. Then I started to find wonderful things."

What emerged after years of labor was a vaulted and tiled room, with underfloor heating.

Shama is convinced not only that the edifice is classical Roman, but that Jesus himself may have relaxed in its steam. "I believe that Jesus was here," he said. "I feel it."

Archaeologist Tzvi Shacham, of the Tel Aviv Antiquities Museum, says all the evidence indicates the bath, like the neighboring Greek Orthodox Church of St. Gabriel, was built during the Crusader period, at least a millennium after Christ. He based his conclusion on an examination of the site and said finds above and below it date from the Crusader period.

Stephen Pfann, president of the Jerusalem-based University of the Holy Land, said the Roman part of Nazareth covered a small area where the modern Basilica of the Annunciation now stands, and it never extended as far as the well and Shama's shop.

"It's clearly not going to be Roman," he said.