**2. The Temple Structure**

The biblical text relates to three main aspects of the structure: its plan, its interior decoration and its courtyard. Here, we relate only to the first aspect: the plan. Architecturally speaking, the structure included five different components: the pair of columns at the entrance (*Jachin* and *Boaz*), the Forecourt (*Ulam*), the Outer Sanctum (*Hechal*), the Holy of Holies (*Devir*), and the side chamber (*yatsia sovev*) (Figure 2). The first modern scholar to deal with Solomon's Temple was Bernhard Stade (1887). On the one hand, he delved deeply into the linguistics of the biblical text and the differences that appear in the Septuagint. On the other hand, he produced graphic reconstructions of the building, and his depiction of the façade is used to this day in various studies. It should be noted, however, that Stade's reconstructions added architectural elements that do not appear in the biblical text, such as steps in the front and triangular protrusions on the roof.

**Figure 2.** The different components of Solomon's Temple: the pair of columns at the entrance, the Forecourt, the Outer Sanctum, the Holy of Holies, and the side chamber.

Despite the detailed descriptions in the Bible, several aspects are unclear and various proposals have been put forward as to how the building's plan should be reconstructed. There are disagreements over various relatively minor details, such as:

1. The location of the columns in relation to the Forecourt: inside or just outside it?

2. The area of the side chamber: did it surround only the Outer Sanctum and the Holy of Holies or the Forecourt as well?

3. Different proposals for the superstructure of the building: for example, did it have windows?

Table 1 presents the main suggestions raised over the years regarding the various parts of the Solomon's Temple.



## **3. Background: Temples in the Levant**

Temples, which are buildings used for venerating supernatural powers, were constructed in the southern Levant from late prehistory onward. Large temples of the second millennium BCE have been uncovered in various fortified cities, and smaller temples of the same period have been unearthed in rural settlements (Mazar 1992). A few years ago, a small temple of the Middle Bronze Age was uncovered near Jerusalem (Ein Mor 2011). The construction of a temple in Jerusalem was thus a commonplace initiative.

The location of the temple within the city of Jerusalem was commonplace as well. The biblical description places it and the palace close to one another, a well-known phenomenon in the ancient world. The renowned scholar Childe, one of the first to study urbanization in the ancient Near East, noted that the center of government in Mesopotamian cities included a palace, a temple, and silos (Childe 1950). Thus political, religious, and economic powers were all concentrated in one area. In the Classical world as well, it was customary to construct palaces and temples close to one another in the highest part of the city, called in Greek the "acropolis", that is, the upper city. In Jerusalem too, the temple and palace were built above the City of David at the highest topographical point of the city. Together they constituted the center of political and religious power in the Kingdom of Judah. In this respect, the biblical description fits well with the customary location of temples in ancient Near Eastern cities.

Archaeologists have also discovered Iron Age temples in the Levant, both outside and inside Judah, that are quite similar in their plan to the temple of Jerusalem. These are presented here in Figure 3, together with Solomon's Temple as described in the biblical text and the Judean temple of Motza.

Two temples dated to the Iron Age II were found at Tell Tayinat, located in the Amuq valley of southeastern Turkey. The site was first excavated by a team from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Haines 1971). A large palace and a temple were found one near the other. A second expedition excavated in the same area uncovered a second temple (Harrison 2012). Both temples are elongated, with one or two columns in the front, and are divided into three parts. The pillars and the tripartite plan closely resemble the plan of Solomon's Temple. These buildings, however, were not surrounded by a side chamber.

Another important close example is the temple of Ain Dara in northwestern Syria (Abu Assaf 1990). It is a monumental building, measuring 32 × 38 m, and includes many artistic items, such as statues and reliefs hewn in hard basalt. The entrance threshold is decorated by huge footprints, about 1 m long, which represent the feet of the deity stepping into his house. As pointed out by various scholars, the plan of the Ain Dara temple is particularly interesting in the context of discussion of Solomon's Temple. This is because the plan includes all five architectural components mentioned in the biblical text: two columns in front, Forecourt, Outer Sanctum, Holy of Holies, and side chamber. Moreover, the Holy of Holies is of equal length and width, creating a square room, as in the description of the Jerusalem temple.

**Figure 3.** Various Iron Age temples in the Levant: 1. Tell Tayinat (Harrison 2012); 2. Tell Tayinat (Haines 1971); 3. Motza (Kisilevitz 2015); 4. Reconstructed plan of Solomon's Temple; 5. Ain Dara (Abu Assaf 1990).

#### **4. The Motza Temple**

The Motza temple is a momentous discovery that has brought about a complete transformation in the understanding of ancient cult in the Kingdom of Judah, and which has huge implications for understanding the biblical description of Solomon's Temple. Already in the 1990s, a large enclosure containing large silos for the storage of agricultural produce had been uncovered, dated from the 10th to 6th centuries BCE (Greenhut and De Groot 2009). In 2012, a temple of the 9th century BCE was discovered next to the silos (Kisilevitz 2015). The construction of the temple in this location was certainly not coincidental and attests to a close association between administration and cult in the Kingdom of Judah (Figures 4 and 5).

**Figure 4.** Schematic plan of the administrative compound at Motza. The excavated areas are shown in gray, and include the silos and the temple. It is likely that the entire complex was surrounded by a fence (based on Greenhut and De Groot 2009; Kisilevitz 2015).

**Figure 5.** Plan of the remains of the temple (above, Kisilevitz 2015) and our interpretation (below).

The plan of the Motza temple is particularly relevant to our subject. Although only part of it is known to us, because the southern side had eroded away down the slope and part of the western side was not excavated, the parts that have been unearthed reveal the full plan. On the eastern side of the excavation area, an open courtyard with three important components was revealed. The first component is a square altar, 1.4 m wide on each side, built of medium-sized fieldstones and preserved to a height of three courses. The second component is the beaten-earth floor, on which were discovered a group of broken cult objects, including two figurines of horses, two heads of bearded males, and fragments of a stand decorated with lions. The third component is a pit in which large quantities of ash and the bones of young animals were buried. In the biblical tradition, young animals are suitable offerings for sacrifice. The discoveries in the courtyard of the temple show that cult activities were carried out there. When all the relevant data are published, a new chapter in the study of ancient religion in the Kingdom of Judah will begin.

The temple structure found west of the courtyard is a long, narrow building, whose dimensions in the area excavated are 10 × 18 m. The building is divided into five parts.

**1. The Forecourt**. The longitudinal walls protrude from the façade, an arrangement known in many temples that creates an entranceway in front of the closed rooms. This space and the open courtyard to its west are arranged along a straight axis.

**2. Two columns**. At the northern end of the Forecourt, a round stone base of a column was found. A second base had obviously been placed symmetrically at the southern end and, although it has not survived, it is reconstructed in the excavation plan. Was the front of the building roofed, or was it open-air and these columns were merely for decoration? Based on the various examples of pottery building models, it seems that the Forecourt was indeed roofed (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2016, pp. 105, 123–25).

**3. Central room**. The structure was entered via an impressive, carefully built doorway, 1.7 m wide. Inside the structure, a bench was found abutting the northeastern corner.

**4. Inner room**. The western part of the building was probably partitioned off by an inner wall, creating the inner Holy of Holies. The inner room has not been fully excavated, and its western end is located outside the excavation area. In our understanding, this inner wall was probably located in line with the side chamber to its north, and immediately after the paved area of the central room.

**5. Side chamber**. A long, narrow chamber was built surrounding the outside of the western half of the building. The walls here were the same thickness as those of the rest of the building. In the small portion that is preserved, there is no entrance to this unit, either from the outside or from the inside of the temple.

The presence of a large, stone-built temple in the 9th century BCE at Motza, one hour's walk from Jerusalem, completely changes the picture of cult in the Kingdom of Judah. If there was a temple at a secondary administrative site, there would certainly have been a central temple in the kingdom's capital.

## **5. The Khirbet Qeiyafa "Building Model"**

The site of Khirbet Qeiyafa is located in the Judean lowland, some 20 km southwest of Jerusalem. During seven seasons of excavations, a fortified city of the early 10th century BCE has been uncovered (Garfinkel and Ganor 2009; Garfinkel et al. 2014; Garfinkel et al. 2015; Garfinkel et al. 2016). In a building near the southern city gate, a cultic room was excavated. Here two building models were uncovered, one made from clay and the other carved in limestone.

The stone model is a carved box, 21 cm wide, 26 cm long, and 35 cm high. Figure 6 shows the object's façade after reconstruction (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013, 2016, pp. 37–46, 2018). The sides and back are simple flat walls, while the façade is elegantly profiled. In the center of the façade is a large rectangular doorway, 10 cm wide and 20 cm high. The entrance has three interlocking frames: the outer frame is the largest, the middle frame is smaller and recessed from the first toward the interior of the model, and the inner frame is the smallest, again recessed from the first two. This triple-recessed doorway forms three rows of lintels above the entrance and three rows of doorposts on either side. A fourth frame, which extends to the top of the structure, apparently represents the edge of the building but may indicate a fourth outer doorframe.

**Figure 6.** The façade of the stone building model from Khirbet Qeiyafa (Photograph by Gabi Laron).

Between the doorframe and the roof of the model is a row of protruding rectangular elements; each is divided by deep incisions into three smaller parallel rectangles. Four such protruding rectangles were fully preserved and remains of three others are visible, together creating seven such elements. This element, depiction in stone of wooden beams that support the roof, known as the triglyph, is a common feature of classical architecture.

The combination of iconographic and linguistic analysis indicates that the recessed opening depicted on the stone object are also described in the biblical text regarding the entrance to Solomon's palace and Solomon's Temple (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013, 2016). In the same way, the beams of the roof, organized three together like triglyph, are also described in the biblical text regarding the façade of Solomon's palace and temple (Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu 2013, 2016).

The stone building model from Khirbet Qeiyafa indicates that the royal architecture described in the biblical text regarding Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE was indeed known in this region in the 10th century BCE.
