Karak Resources Project

Although the fortifications have been much damaged over the centuries by natural decay, war and occasional earthquakes, the old town and castle Karak still manage to dominate the local landscape. In order to approach the town one must ascend from deep wādīs (the Arabic term for a valley) on steep switchback roads. The town and castle are located on a plateau approximately 850m in length, at the south end of which is the massive castle. The castle itself has been separated from the town and the hill to the south by means of deep man-made ditches. Karak castle evidently impressed observers of the Medieval period, because we have numerous brief descriptions of it in chronicles, geographical works and the accounts of Arab and European travellers. One visitor to Karak was the famous fourteenth-century traveller, Ibn Battūta. During his extraordinary peregrination from North Africa all the way to China, he undertook the Muslim pilgrimage (Arabic: hajj) to the Holy Cities of Mekka and Medina. He started this part of his journey from Damascus and so the route took him south through Jordan via the King’s Highway (Arabic: Darb al-Malik). He records that the pilgrims stopped at the village of al-Thāniyya, located on a hill east of Karak, in order to buy provisions for the next stage of the journey. From here it was possible to see the castle. He writes:

Then the travellers came to the castle of Karak which is one of the most marvellous, most inaccessible and most celebrated of castles. It is called the “Castle of the Raven” (Arabic: hisn al-ghurāb). It seems to be surrounded on all sides by valleys.

Today, we can still share the view enjoyed by Ibn Battūta over six hundred years’ ago by standing on the hill of Marj al-Thāniyya. We do not know the reason why it came to be called the “Castle of the Raven,” although it may be a reference to the bird depicted on the official seal of the last Crusader lord of Karak, Renaud de Châtillon. What is clear, however, is that all who wrote about Karak recognized the strength of the fortifications.

In the regions of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, Karak is only exceeded in size and magnificence by the Crusader castle of Crac des Chevaliers (between the Syrian towns of Homs and Tartus) and the Muslim citadels of Aleppo and Damascus. The old town and castle of Karak occupy a perfect position with steep escarpments surrounding it on all sides but the south. While the castle was besieged on numerous occasions, it was not stormed by force of arms until the nineteenth century. This capacity to withstand lengthy sieges led to the castle performing a wide range of functions in the Crusader (1142-1188), Ayyubid (1188-1263), Mamluk (1263-1516) and Ottoman (1516-1918) periods including palatial residence, arsenal, treasury, prison and military headquarters.

In order to understand the architectural history of Karak we need to make use of the evidence provided by the standing architecture, as well as written sources of the Medieval period (including both descriptions in chronicles and the stone inscriptions attached to buildings). The town of Karak is represented on two church mosaics at Mādabā (sixth century) and Umm al-Rasās (dated 718), both in Jordan. In both cases, the site (given in the inscriptions as Karakhmoba, i.e. “Karak of Moab”) is shown as a town surrounded by a defensive wall, although there is no sign of a castle in this early period. We know from pottery gathered around Karak that the town was occupied during the Byzantine period, and much earlier, but almost no sign of this earlier history is apparent in the architecture. The only remnant of the Byzantine town is to be found in the Greek church of St George, although most of the present structure dates to the nineteenth century. Otherwise, everything in Karak can be dated from the time of the first construction of the Crusader castle in c.1142 through to the modern day. The Crusader churches of Karak have been discussed in detail by Pringle (see bibliography), but no overall study of the architecture of Karak castle, and the other fortifications has been attempted. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify changes in the style of the buildings which give clues about the way in which the site developed from the Crusader through to the Mamluk period.

It is important to recognize that Karak is one example of the many fortified towns of the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk period. Under the Crusaders, the lands of Jordan (known in Crusader sources as Oultrejourdain) were controlled by a series of fortifications, the most important of which being Shawbak, Karak and Wu`ayra (near Petra). After 1188 Karak was drawn into larger political configurations first under the Ayyubids and later the Mamluks and Ottomans. Therefore, in order to fully appreciate the military architecture of Karak, it is necessary to consider the developments in other Crusader and Muslim castles in Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon.