Solomon's Stables

Solomon's Stables, 1898.

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.