MELLO. - A grandiose masonry work (Heb. Millò), which appears in the list of Solomonic 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 (= "filling") and the purpose set by the monarch "to close up the breach of the city of David" (1 Kings 11:27) suggest a rampart or earthwork, whose exact nature nevertheless remains unknown, to protect some weak point between the "city of David" and the constructions of the Temple and the adjacent palaces.

Excavations have not so far made it possible to determine the precise site of the construction. Macalister identified the M. 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, thinks of a vast esplanade that would have joined the city of David (de-Jahurah) with the new quarter of Ophel. H. Vincent, more probably, maintains instead that the M. would be the great bastion created between the royal palaces and the city of David to fill the depression that extended between the present-day Double Gate and the Gate of the Maghrebis, or in the square known today as Hakurat el-Katunijjeh, an archaic filling on the eastern edge of the Tyropoeon.

The work was further restored with some fortress by Hezekiah, whence the name of Beth M. (1 Chronicles 11:8; 2 Chronicles 32:5).

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: H. Vincent, Jérusalem, I, Paris 1912, pp. 172-87; R. Weil, La cité de David, I, ibid. 1920, pp. 24-29; II, ibid. 1948, pp. 32-35; R. A. Macalister - I. Duncan, Excavations on the hill Ophel (Palest. explor. fund. annual, 4), London 1926, pp. 79-87; id., in Revue biblique, 56 (1948), p. 615.

Donato Baldi

@incollection{ec8_mello, author = {Baldi, Donato}, title = {Mello}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {649--650}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/mello} }

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