Where Was Solomon’s Palace?

We know where King David’s city was. It was on the little 10–12-acre ridge south of the Temple Mount, just outside the Old City walls. On this all are agreed. This little ridge is still called the City of David.

Then King Solomon extended the city northward to the Temple Mount, where he built the Temple.

We know he had a palace—or at least a royal residence. As Israel Finkelstein has noted in BAR, “When you have a dynasty ruling in the capital of a territorial entity, you always have a palace and a royal shrine near the palace.”^a And, for what it’s worth (pace, Israel F.), the Bible also indicates Solomon had a palace. It is described in some detail in 1 Kings 7:1–12. It took 13 years to build. Cedar from Lebanon was used throughout. The foundations were of costly stone. The structure was 30 cubits high with three tiers of windows facing each other. One portico of the building was known as the Hall of Judgment, where the king pronounced his decisions, also called the Throne Room. The whole place was surrounded with courtyards, including the Great Courtyard. Behind one of these courtyards was the king’s private residence.

But where was this palace?

Until now, the universal answer to this question has been that Solomon’s palace was located between the northern edge of the City of David and the Temple—perhaps on the southern end of the Temple Mount itself.

This seems to be confirmed by the Bible. As you go from the City of David northward to the Temple Mount, you ascend nearly 200 feet to a height of 2,415 feet above sea level. From the Temple Mount, you look down on the City of David. The Bible tells us that when King Josiah sent his scribe (presumably from the palace) to the high priest in the Temple, Josiah tells him to “go up” (aleh) to the House of the Lord (2 Kings 22:3–4). When some court officials visit the Temple gate for a meeting, the Bible records that “they went up from the king’s palace to the House of the Lord” (Jeremiah 26:10).

Tel Aviv University archaeologist David Ussishkin concedes that “All scholars reconstruct the royal palace to the south of the Temple.” But he has a different answer. Ussishkin agrees that Solomon’s palace was on the Temple Mount, but argues that it was north, not south, of the Temple.¹

For Ussishkin, this makes much more sense. To the north of the Temple was an area spacious enough to accommodate a large palatial complex. Equally important, placing the palace south of the Temple would mean everyone approaching the Temple from the City of David would have to pass by or through the palace complex, hardly the most secure or private location. Placing the palace north of the Temple would provide isolation and security.

Ussishkin also supports his argument with additional topographical and archaeological considerations.

Northwest of the Temple Mount is a hill that is connected to the Temple Mount by a rock saddle. Topographically, this is Jerusalem’s weakest point of defense. At the time, the other sides of the ancient city were (and still are) protected by steep slopes. Ussishkin postulates that a deep moat was cut across the rock saddle to protect the palace, the Temple and the city below from attack across this vulnerable path.

Ussishkin is not the first to suggest the existence of a moat in this saddle, if only to protect the Temple. Others have also suggested this, beginning with Charles Wilson and Charles Warren in 1871. They, too, said that a deep ditch must have been cut across this rock saddle. Other more recent scholars have continued to support this suggestion. One wonders why, with modern tools like ground-penetrating radar, this supposition cannot be tested.

Ussishkin’s unique contribution, however, is to call our attention to archaeological examples of such ancient moats cut into hard rock. Ussishkin has found a rock-cut moat at Jezreel, a site in northern Israel that he excavated.^b Additional examples come from Anatolia—at the central fortress of the kings of Urartu, as well as at a site called Cavustepe.

Ussishkin also weighs in on the shape of the Solomonic Temple Mount. All agree that Solomon’s Temple Mount would have been considerably smaller than the Herodian (Second) Temple Mount that we see today. Nahman Avigad, the revered archaeological scholar of Jerusalem, reconstructed the Solomonic Temple Mount with curved walls.² Ussishkin disagrees. He believes the earlier Temple Mount, though smaller than the later one, was nevertheless rectangular, with straight walls. In this he agrees with two other prominent Jerusalem archaeologists, Kathleen Kenyon³ and Leen Ritmeyer.⁴

Right or wrong, Ussishkin’s ideas are always provocative.

We know where King David’s city was. It was on the little 10–12-acre ridge south of the Temple Mount, just outside the Old City walls. On this all are agreed. This little ridge is still called the City of David.