Solomon had cisterns dug to hold water on the Mount. Channels cut in the bedrock connected those cisterns to create a water system for the ceremonies on the altar.  The channels are like stone tunnels in which the water flowed down hill from cistern to cistern.  An aqueduct, a large stone water channel, was built from the pools at Bethlehem all the way to Jerusalem and then connected to the cistern water system on the Holy Mount.  All of these water systems worked because they flowed down hill.  The Dome of the Rock area is above the water flow level on the mount and so the Temple could not have been placed up there.  The bedrock between the Dome of the Rock and the lower southern mosque area drops dramatically about half way.  All of the water systems support the temple being much lower than the Dome area.   In fact perfect for the lower platform area in the south end of the mount.   With the temple being located in this southern area, As the Lord has helped me to understand,  the Well of the Leaf becomes a very important cistern concerning temple life and ceremonies.   "Living water" or fresh running water, was required for cleansing the Altar platform and for priestly ceremony. This required the water from the Aqueduct to flow directly to the Altar platform.    This is important because the blood of the sacrificed animals, which were thousands per day during feast time, had to be carried away by water through a channel deep in the ground called the "blood channel". The blood drained down into the Kidron Valley.  People search for it today to prove the place of the old Temple and altar.  From what I have learned about the location of Solomon's Temple and Temple life I believe this blood channel would lead from the South end toward the Northeast, dumping the blood as far north from the old City of David as possible.   Some of the blood was collected and sold for fertilizer.  Fires burned continually in the Kidron because it was the city dump. And it was a place of graves. The names for hell come from this. All of this wouldn't have been directly below the Old City nor the Temple, but North of both. 
 
 
 

The Muslims

According to Josephus the platform that the Temple and altar and inner gates extended from the  valley on the west to the deep valley  on the East, just as the platform under the southern wall does today.  This platform is located under the southern Islamic Mosque called Al-Aksa.  The Islamic peoples claim the  ruins underneath the mosque are of the old wooden mosque that collapsed and was replaced in 711 AD during an earthquake.  The problem with this is that the ruins underneath are stone, not wood.  In fact there are many problems with this idea. One of the biggest problems is that the ruins are on the platform that I was speaking of. It lays some 40 feet below the surface.  That would have to mean that when the first Muslim wooden mosque was built on the platform 40 feet below the surface. We know this was not the case since there is no record of the Muslims raising the ground level of the Temple mount some 40 feet before building the stone mosque in 711 AD.

Any ruins under the ground, built on the platform, did not have anything to do with the Arabs nor their mosque.  It has only been in recent years that they have begun to call the ruins their old wooden mosque.  Historically, it was always said that the mosque was built over the altar of Solomon's Temple. 
 

What motivated Omar to build the southern mosque where he did?

    In 638 A.D., when Omar (the Second Caliph) captured  Jerusalem, he asked Sophronius the archbishop to show him where King David had prayed before the building of the Temple. Omar said he wished to pray in the same spot. Sophronius showed him, first, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which Omar rejected. Then Sophronius took the Caliph to the traditional Zion on the southwest hill. Omar rejected that spot too. Then, when Omar stated that he wished to build a shrine at the place where David prayed, Sophronius then took him to the place over and near the Gihon Spring where the Jews had attempted to reconstruct the Temple in the time of Constantine (as permitted in the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. and with construction continuing to 325 A.D.) and also in the time of Julian the Apostate (362 A.D.). At that former Temple site over near the Gihon Spring, Omar was impressed. He dug through the filth and found a stone that he removed and took it through the South Gate of the Haram esh-Sharif, as he called it. There he placed it on the elevated platform directly abutting the southern wall. He called the place the Al Aqsa (and a Mosque was soon built there)., Omar even took a single stone from that area and re-positioned it within his new mosque that he finally started to construct at the southern end of the Haram esh-Sharif. That stone became the qibla [the pillar stone that pointed the faithful Muslims to pray toward Mecca]

This is very interesting because  Omar went through the SOUTH GATE. What South Gate??   The only gate they could be talking about is the double gate, which is called the Hulda Gate, and even in his time entered the Temple Mount  below ground level of the mount.

Sophronius then "took him to the place over and near the Gihon Spring" . The map below shows this area ;

    With the size of the Temple area and the width of the southern ridge of the Ophel (old city of David area) this is about as close as one can get to the Gihon Springs (located at the bottom of the steep hill). But in Jerusalem, locations were identified by the nearest land mark, which in the south east of mount Mariah was the Gihon springs.  Sophranius took Omar to the Ophel ruins and Omar dug in the filth (garbage) and found a rock. There is no mention of Omar ascending the 30 stairs leading up to the gate, which is because they were buried by the Romans centuries earlier, but he entered the south wall through an arch and placed the rock on the temple platform.
 

 The Christians had built a church over the Dome of the Rock area called "The Church of the Holy Wisdom." which was  was destroyed by the Persians and Jewish soldiers in 614 A.D.

    The Christians believed that this was the rock under the The Church of the Holy Wisdom was where Pilate stood Jesus when passing judgment.  They even believed that Jesus' foot print were embossed into it.
 

The Ophel park on the other side of the southern wall was  buried under tons of dirt and rubble until Jerusalem was captured by the Jewish people in 1967, as we see from this aerial photo  before the excavations began.
 

Old picture taken before the excavation of the Ophel began

 
 
 

Some of the taller ruins can be seen sticking out of the ground on the right side of the city wall.  It took 20 years to uncover the ruins below the surface.

"It is said that Omar began to retrieve many ruined stones from the same area that Sophronius said was the site of the Jewish Temple in order to build the Al Aqsa Mosque itself. In fact the columns that support the Al-Aksa Mosque are Corinthian made, as were all the columns of the colonnades built by Herod when he extended the courts of the Temple complex.

Quote; "In 1210 C.E. there is a brief account by Rabbi Samuel Ben Samson that in Jerusalem was a place where "only the foundations [of the Temple] remain now in existence." It was near the "fount [spring] of Etham, the bathing place of the priests."  Rabbi Samson said that opposite the fount was a Gate in the Western Wall. " At the base of this wall there is to be observed a kind of arch placed at the base of the Temple. It is by a subterranean passage that the priests reach the fount of Etham, the spot where the baths [of the priests] were".  He concluded his remarks with: "Only the foundations [of the Temple] remain now in existence, but the place where the Ark stood is still to be seen" (ibid.).  (Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages, p.104).

    The Rabbi had seen the foundations of the old temple and knew what they were. The only way he could have seen them in 1210 AD  was by going through the subterranean passage way leading in form the ruins of the old North Gate of Solomon's temple at the stairs leading below the mosque.

    I don't believe it is mere coincidence that the mosque and Arab buildings that line the southwest part of the old Roman wall are built directly over ever ruin found underground.
 

Quote;  [There had been two Jewish attempts to rebuild the Temple: one in the time of Constantine and the other about 37 years later in the time of Julian the Apostate. These Temples were never completed and ruins from them continued at the site. Even a part of the western wall of the Holy of Holies from those fourth century Temples was left standing]
 

In the sixth century the Pilgrim of Piacenze mentions the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. From these accounts we can deduce that there were at least some visible remains of the Temple foundation through the sixth century.
Quote: In the year 363AD the emperor, the other pagans, and all the Jews, regarded every other undertaking as secondary in importance to this. The pagans were well-disposed towards the Jews because of the emperors decree, and wanted to assisted them in this enterprise, because they reckoned upon its ultimate success, and hoped by this means to falsify the prophecies of Christ (Since Jesus in the New Testament had prophesied the destruction of the Temple, its rebuilding would make of him a false prophet). Besides this motive, the Jews themselves [relying on the sympathy of Julian] were impelled by the consideration that the time had arrived for rebuilding their Temple. With Jews and pagans on their way to Jerusalem, Julian the apostate went on a war campaign against the Persians.

As soon as the Jews and the pagans began to shovel dirt from the foundations and from around parts of the wall yet standing, a great wind storm arose and blew away all their tools and covered back up the trenches they had dug.  The day following they obtained more tools and went back to work.  They uncovered again part of the foundation cleared away even more dirt; it is said that on the following day when they were about to lay the cornerstone upon the first foundation, a great earthquake occurred, and by the violent shaking of the earth, stones were thrown down and some stones were actually puked up from the depths. Those Jews and pagans who were engaged in the work were wounded, as well as some standing around gawking. The houses and public porticos, near the site of the Temple, into which many workers had run to hide, were also suddenly thrown down. Hundreds were caught thereby and crushed to death, some perished immediately, others were found half dead and mutilated with hands, legs, and feet severed, others were injured in other parts of the body.  This did not stop the stubborn Jews or the pagans.  They rejected that this could be from God to stop them from rebuilding what he had torn down.

When God caused the earthquake to cease, the Jews and the pagans who survived, again returned to their task, partly because such was the edict of the emperor, and partly because they were themselves interested in the undertaking against Christ and Christianity.

The Jews, I believe, were just partially mad; for, instead of regarding the massive wind storm and the unexpected earthquake as a manifest indication that God was opposed to their rebuilding the Temple, they proceeded to recommence the work a third time. They had scarcely returned to the undertaking, when fire burst suddenly from the foundations of the Temple, and devoured their tools and several of the Jews and pagans screaming in agony were burned to cinders.

These facts were related with great fear. Some maintain that the flame burst from the interior area of the Temple where the holy of holies once stood, as the workmen were striving to lay a foundation in that area. While others say that the fire proceeded - directly up out of earth around all the foundation. End quote.

    This reconstruction of the Temple began in 313 AD.   After 70 AD the Jews of the area were allowed to return to Jerusalem once a year.  Fathers bringing sons to the wailing wall for prayers.  Does anyone really believe that the location of the temple was not passed on from one generation to the next?   I believe that it is very possible that the Jews that were given permission to rebuild the temple are the ones that dug the double passageway of the Huldah gate fortifying it with arched tunnels.  They knew exactly where the old raised, altar platform was and did all they could to preserve the underground site.   From the way that Sophronius tried to fool Omar by taking him to different areas saying they were the site of David's altar where the Jews had tried to rebuild, and Omar was not fooled, I would say that Omar had heard stories and knew pretty much what he was looking for.  When Sophronius finally took him to the south wall over near the Gihon Springs Omar knew this was the place .
 
 
 

The Roman's

In the original Jewish Temple; between the North Gate, set in the outer wall that surrounding the Jewish Temple compound, and the North Inner Gate, that lead up to the altar platform, was a distance of about 60 feet. When this area was filled in with dirt by Titus' men, and the ground level was brought up to a new level about 40 feet above the platform to cover all evidence of the Jewish Temple area, (I will address this later in this article), then the area between these two gates was filled with dirt and rubble.  Who was it that at a later time in history dug the tunnel between these two gates creating the double passageway that is there today?  My guess is that it was the Jews that were trying to rebuild their Temple in 325 AD. 

The Roman's did all they could to disguise this area after they destroyed the Temple in 70 AD.  I believe they built a wall right through the middle of where the old temple fortress had once stood taking advantage of the inner wall that ran from east to west.    Building the southern wall we see today on the existing platform allowed for fast work, and sturdy work, plus totally disguised the area.  There is what is called a straight joint near the southeast corner.   This joint  shows that the wall originally took a 90 degree corner at that spot and headed west.  But someone removed the wall going to the west and built stacked vaulted rooms to bring the ground level to what we see today.  Some believe Herod built the Southeast corner of the wall, but I have seen evidence that challenges this.  The evidence is in the drawings of another explorer of the eighteen hundreds named Charles Warren.  He dug a tunnel 80 feet deep to expose the stones of the southeast extension. There he saw Herod stones, but they were recycled stones, laid in disorder. Not the work of Herod’s own men who, when we look at the western walls, built in perfect order with the draft margins, called bossing, all match up perfectly to create lines the length of the wall.  If we were looking at the temple walls of Herod then the whole Temple Mount walls would have that same pattern and be very beautiful.  A Herod wall is easily recognized, which is evident in the recently uncovered western corner of the Mount walls, and the eastern wall was not a Herod built wall (see pictures Here). Yet the wall and the stacked rooms contain much Herod cut recycled stones.  How is this? I believe it is because it was Titus who tore down the old temple, and walls, and would have them at hand to build the extended wall of the southeast corner. It is still a mystery where the Temple stones are.  The recycling of those stones as the lowest foundations of this extension of the wall makes sense.

Although Titus had to tear down the walls and buildings that were south of the temple platform, much of the ruins to the north of the platform he could hide away under tons of dirt,  as he raised the ground level.  Raising the ground level was nothing new, although not to this height. Solomon raised the ground level of the Ophel when he first built the  temple fortress because the hill was not level enough for building on. He built over from valley to valley, filling in the deeper areas to create a flatter surface area for the Temple.  Herod increased the courtyards and so had to fill in parts of the Cheesmonger's valley on the west side. It required that he fill in much of the area to create a flatter surface within the compound.  Mount Moriah has gone through much face work but the bedrock still tells the tale of the double mounds of Mount Moriah with two bedrock tops protruding out of the earth, one flat as for a threshing floor.

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