In his fundamental study of the Dome of the Rock Professor K. A. C. Creswell discusses the date of the ceilings, and in connection with this he draws attention to some interesting facts discovered in 1873 by Dr. Thomas Chaplin: “There is a very old carved wooden cornice still running round the building in the space between the ceiling and roof of the outer corridor on the inner wall of the latter, just above the ceiling.” And further: the roof of this outer ambulatory was found to have Kufic inscriptions on one beam and on “6 or 8 more rafters” in the name of the ‘Abbāsid Khalif al-Muqtadir bi'llāh (295–320 H./908–32 a.d.).