Footnote 4 – Was the Site of the Jerusalem Temple Originally a Cemetery?
Solomon’s Stables, of course, are not Solomonic but part of the substructure of the Temple Mount platform built by Herod the Great. The size and configuration of the Temple Mount did not satisfy the grand schemes of Herod. He had the Mount enlarged, especially on the southern side, by constructing tiers of vaults to raise the level of the ground and support the platform. The original lower courses of the tiers supporting the vaults have survived in the halls of “Solomon’s Stables”; the vaults themselves are a later repair, perhaps of the Crusader period. The knights of the Knights Templar who had their headquarters in the El-Aqsa mosque used the vaulted halls under the Temple Mount platform as stables. Thus, while the attribution of these halls to Solomon is historically not correct, their use as stables is factual.