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USSISHKIN MAKES A MOAT POINT. According to Tel Aviv University archaeologist David Ussishkin, King Solomon would have built his palace not south of the Temple, as scholars have long suggested, but in a more open, spacious area of the mount just north of the Temple, well removed from the constant foot traffic and noise of people moving between the City of David and the Temple Mount. As seen on this reconstructed plan of the Solomonic Temple Mount, both the Temple [1] and Solomon’s palace [2] were strategically vulnerable from the northwest, where a narrow rock saddle connects the Temple Mount with an adjacent hill [3]. To prevent incursions from this direction, Ussishkin postulates, Solomon had a moat [4] cut across the saddle, leaving his palace and the Temple isolated and secure from attack from this direction.