What Did King David’s Palace Look Like?

We can know a great deal about what King David’s palace looked like even if we never find it in excavations.

“I dwell in a house of cedars,” David disclosed (1 Chronicles 17:1). His palace was in fact built for him by Hiram, the Phoenician king of Tyre, who used cedars of Lebanon in its construction (2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Chronicles 14:1). David’s palace was doubtless in Phoenician style.

How would a Phoenician palace have looked in the tenth century B.C.E.?

Solomon’s palace was also built by the Phoenicians (actually by the same Hiram). Although no trace of Solomon’s palace has survived, the Bible does provide a brief description of it (1 Kings 7:1–12). And Tel Aviv University archaeologist David Ussishkin has reconstructed Solomon’s palace plan based on this text, aided by archaeological parallels.¹⁵ Contemporaneous parallels that match the Biblical description have been excavated in Syria and Turkey. These palaces are known as bit-hilani, an Akkadian term for a structure with a colonnaded entrance portico, or porch.¹⁶