No legendary building has ever inspired more conjecture about what it might have looked like than Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. It is said to have been built in c.950BC, on the mound where God created Adam, and was destroyed 400 years later by marauding Babylonians. But, beyond some inconsistent descriptions in the Bible written centuries after the temple was razed, there is no archaeological evidence that this palatial edifice ever existed.
And yet, for more than two millennia, generations of architects, archaeologists and ideologues have bickered over the building’s appearance. They have debated its exact height and width, speculated on the design of its columns, and battled over the precise nature of its porch. The mythic building, also known as the First Temple, has inspired everything from a Renaissance royal palace in Spain to a recent megachurch in Brazil, to the interiors of masonic lodges around the world – all built on a fantasy.
