Templum Salomonis (Templar Headquarters)

Also known as Templum Salomonis, Al-Aqsa Mosque (Templar HQ), Solomon's Temple

The Crusaders identified the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the south end of the Temple Mount as the Templum Salomonis — Solomon's royal palace — and used it as the residence of the first two kings of Jerusalem, Baldwin I and Baldwin II. In 1118 Baldwin II moved the royal household to the Citadel by the Tower of David and granted the mosque to a small group of knights who had vowed to protect pilgrims on the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The new order took its name — the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, or Templars — from the building, and used it as their international headquarters for the next sixty-nine years. The Templars added houses, refectories, cellars and a new church wing of 'magnificent size and workmanship' along the outer court, and stabled their horses in the great Herodian-era subterranean vaults still known as Solomon's Stables. Saladin reconverted the complex to a mosque in 1187 and dismantled the Frankish additions, reusing some of the masonry for the nearby Dome of the Ascension.

Coordinates: 31.7762°, 35.2358°

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