Image Details

A sign of Solomon? Taken by Oriental Institute excavators in the 1930s, this provides one important clue in the search for Solomon’s Stables. We are looking directly at room 351 from the north (from the opposite direction than that of the preceding plan). The area shown was part of the ninth-century B.C. stables, with the space between the rows of pillars serving as a center aisle for two side rooms where horses would have been held. From other such tripartite structures we know that the central aisle was unpaved and covered with lime plaster. The line of flat stones just to the left of the right row of columns and at bottom center may be a wall of an earlier building. This wall, and the others noted on the plan opposite, may be the walls of the tenth-century B.C. stables that housed Solomon’s horses.