Mosiah 11:9; Alma 22:1–2 (between 160 and 150 B.C., in land of Nephi)

The “spacious palace” built by king Noah could be the largest building noted in the Book of Mormon account. King Noah, the Nephite dissenter, was the son of Zeniff who led the small group from Zarahemla, through the narrow strip of wilderness, to the land of Nephi in about 180 B.C. (see journey of Zeniff’s people back to the land of Nephi in our topic article, The Narrow Strip of Wilderness—Spatial Features, Orientation and Recorded Journeys). King Noah’s “spacious palace … was of fine wood” and “ornamented with gold and silver and with precious things” (Mosiah 11:9). The record mentions that king Noah built other “elegant and spacious buildings” and “ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper” (Mosiah 11:8). He supported his “idolatrous” and lascivious living by taxing the people a “fifth part of their gold and of their silver, and a fifth part of their ziff, and of their copper, and of their brass and their iron; and a fifth part of their fatlings; and also a fifth part of all their grain” Mosiah 11:3). Again it is significant there is no mention of stone used in the construction of king Noah’s “spacious” palace. And clearly “fine wood” was the most significant material in its construction.

King Lamoni’s father, the king of the Lamanites converted by the sons of Mosiah, lived in a palace, and Aaron and his brethren went into the “king’s palace” where they taught him the gospel (Alma 22:1–2). It is not clear if Lamanites built this palace or the palace was built by king Noah, son of Zeniff, and his fellow Nephites in this land before king Noah suffered death by fire and their land invaded and occupied by the Lamanites (Alma 19:1–25).