Templum Domini (Dome of the Rock)

Also known as Dome of the Rock, Qubbat al-Sakhra, Temple of the Lord

The seventh-century Umayyad Dome of the Rock was the most spectacular building in Jerusalem when the Crusaders captured the city in 1099. Believing — wrongly — that the structure was a remnant of the Temple of Solomon, the Franks Christianised it without demolishing it. They placed a great gilded cross atop the dome, fixed an altar to St Nicholas on the bare bedrock of the Foundation Stone (1162), and surrounded the rock with a decorative iron grille to prevent pilgrims from chipping it for relics. An Augustinian abbey of canons regular was established to the north to serve the new church, which was known as the Templum Domini. After Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187 the modifications were undone, the cross was thrown down, and the building was reconsecrated as a mosque, but the iron grille and the Crusader-period mosaics in the drum survived for centuries.

Coordinates: 31.7780°, 35.2354°

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