The Ṣakhrah itself is the controlling feature, because it rises at its crest 8 feet above the average level of the surrounding rock terrace. If the Holy House was built over the Ṣakhrah, then the levels of the descending courts naturally agree with those of the rock site. But if the Temple itself is placed to the south or to the west of the Ṣakhrah, it is no longer on the top of the mountain; and any student who draws a section, in accordance with the ascertained levels of the rock, will find that he has, in these cases, to suppose foundations of masonry of at least 30 feet necessary to support the heavy walls of the building. On the west the rock is found in a cistern mouth, only 100 feet from the Ṣakhrah, but already more than 20 feet lower; and it descends steeply to the foot of the west Ḥaram wall, where it is found to be nearly 200 feet lower than the Ṣakhrah crest, which--on these suppositions--would be the level of the outer court, since it cannot have been left protruding above that level. Thus, although to the student who merely considers the plan of the building it seems allowable to propose any position he prefers, near the Ṣakhrah, as the exact site of the Holy House, we are in reality very strictly confined to the conclusion that this sacred “rock” was the foundation on which it rose. For the later Temple was more than 100 feet long, and it is unnatural to suppose that it would have been built on the west slope, or on the lower part of the small plateau, to the south, and raised up by foundations of such height as would be needed, when there was just room for the Temple and its inner court on the higher part of the small plateau. Josephus appears to be quite right in saying, not only that the Temple was on the “top of the mountain,” but yet more definitely that “at first the highest flat part barely sufficed for the Holy House and the altar: for the ground about it was very uneven and precipitous.” He says that Solomon “built a wall on its eastern side,” but that “on other parts the Holy House stood naked.” The west enclosure wall was apparently not erected till much later; and although when Pompey besieged Jerusalem there was already a bridge from the upper city to the Temple ridge, the west side of the hill was even then “abrupt,”[112] and not filled up with earth, within the rampart, to bring it to a level with the Temple courts. “New banks”--according to Josephus--were added in later times, and thus “the hill became a larger plateau.”