Solomon's Stables

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Solomon's Stables is the common name of an area located directly underneath the south eastern corner of the Temple Mount, an area where the bedrock falls away steeply from the level of the Temple Mount platform. Solomon's Stables are a series of rooms built within the vaulting which lifts this corner of the Temple Mount above the bedrock; at their western edge they connect directly into the southern end of the eastern Huldah Gate passageway. Today, the stables' remains are located 12½ metres below the Temple Mount Courtyard, and consist of twelve rows of pillars and arches.

The area has had the name Solomon's Stables since Crusader times, during which they were used by the crusaders as stables; the Temple Mount above is traditionally the location of the Temple of Solomon. However, they are unlikely to date as far back as Solomon, and are more plausibly due to Herod the Great, who substantially extended the Temple Mount platform by building the vaults at this corner, and elsewhere, to support it.

Islamic tradition credits a caliph named el-Marwani with transforming this area of the vaults into a series of usable rooms, rather than just going down to the bedrock directly, and regards the location as having originally been intended as a mosque (which is thus known as the el-Marwani mosque). In 1996, the waqf converted the area (which had from crusader times been mostly empty) into a modern mosque, capable of housing 7,000 people.

In 1997, the waqf decided to dig up the south eastern area of the Temple Mount. Ignoring the safety requirement that led to its construction, many archeologists widely criticised the digging of such a large hole in the mount; in addition, the waqf were accused of damaging archaeological relics and the Southern Wall's stability because of this process. The soil removed from the dig was dumped near the Mount of Olives, and a number of archeologists have extensively sifted the soil checking for, and finding, archaeological remains[1], and have accused the waqf of carrying out the excavation as a malicious attempt to destroy evidence of any Jewish presence on the Temple Mount prior to Islam.

In popular western imagination, the area has recently become associated with the Knights Templar, due to a slightly misleading claim in the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, which stated that the order of the Knights Templar had their headquarters in this area; in actuality, the Knights Templar had their headquarters directly above, in what is now the Al Aqsa Mosque, and used this location as stables.

Solomon's Stables are also featured as a location in the Left Behind novel, Glorious Appearing.