MELLO. - A grand masonry work (cfr. Millo'), which appears in the list of Solomon’s constructions (1 Kings 9:15, 24) and occasioned the rebellion against the king (ibid., 11:27). The mention in 2 Samuel 5:9 appears as an anticipation to determine the starting point of "the M." in the repairs made by King David to the Canaanite city. The etymology of the name (= "repaired") and the purpose set by the monarch to close the breach of the city of David (1 Kings 11:27) suggest a rampart or embankment, though its exact nature remains unknown, to protect some weak point between the "city of David" and the constructions of the Temple and adjacent palaces.
Excavations have so far failed to determine the precise site of the construction. Macalister identified Mello with the northern breach of the city of David, opened by David, later closed and repaired with fortifications and towers by Solomon. Weil, on the other hand, suggests a vast esplanade that would have united the city of David (de-Dahurah) with the new quarter of Ophel. H. Vincent, more plausibly, argues that Mello would be the great bastion created between the royal palaces and the city of David to fill the depression extending between the present Double Gate and the Gate of the Maghrebines or in the square now called Hakurat el-Katunijjeh, an ancient fill on the eastern margin of the Tyropoeon.
The work was later restored with some castles by Hezekiah, whence the name Beth Mello (1 Chronicles 11:8; 2 Chronicles 32:5).