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Solomon's Temple (Hebrew: בית המקדש, transliterated Beit HaMikdash), also known as the First Temple, was, according to the Bible, the first Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. more...

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It functioned as a religious focal point for worship and the sacrifices known as the korbanot in ancient Judaism. Completed in the 10th century BCE, it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The reconstructed temple in Jerusalem, which stood between 515 BCE and 70 CE, was the Second Temple.

Biblical account of the Temple's construction

Building materials

Before his death King David had provided materials in great abundance for the building of the temple on the summit of Mount Moriah (1 Chronicles 22:14; 29:4; 2 Chronicles 3:1), where he had purchased a threshing floor from Araunah the Jebusite (2 Sam. 24:21 et seq.), on which he offered sacrifice. The Bible states that in the beginning of his reign, King Solomon of the united Kingdom of Israel, set about giving effect to the ideas of his father, and prepared additional materials for the building. From subterranean quarries at Jerusalem he obtained huge blocks of stone for the foundations and walls of the temple. These stones were prepared for their places in the building under the eye of Tyrian master-builders. According to this account, Solomon also entered into a pact with Hiram I, king of Tyre, for the supply of whatever else was needed for the work, particularly timber from the forests of Lebanon, which was brought in great rafts by the sea to Joppa, whence it was dragged to Jerusalem (1 Kings 5).

According to the Septuagint, to Aristeas, to the Tractate Yoma, and according to the archaeological explorations of the rocky underground of the Haram conducted by the 19th century archaeologists, Solomon also provided for a sufficient water supply for the Temple by having hewn, in the underground rock of the ancient Jewish Citadel (nowadays Haram) dominating and protecting the Temple, vast cisterns, into which living purifying waters were conveyed by an Aqueduct (called Aqueduct of Etam, or Aqueduct of Solomon, or ancient Aqueduct) originating from the Etam sources and flowing into \"the Solomon Pools\" near Bethlehem. These Solomon Pools collected and stored, thus, upstream 400 millions liters of purifying waters. One of the (Haram) underground cisterns dug by Solomon upstream of the Temple platform, Cistern n°8, according to the numeration established by Charles Warren (19th century archaeologist), the cistern called the \"Great Sea\" (Septuagint), was (and still is) capable of containing twelve million liters.

These underground cisterns of the ancient Jewish citadel (nowadays Haram) provided, solely by gravity and through appropriate underground channels, the source waters needed in the sanctuary mikvahs and brazen laver, for all the exacting rites of purification prescribed by Jewish scripture:

Read more at Wikipedia.org