Beirut Castle was a major

Crusader castle This is a list of castles in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, founded or occupied during the Crusades. For crusader castles in Poland and the Baltic states, see Ordensburg. There were two major phases of the deliberate destruction (slig ...

located in downtown

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. It was mostly built during the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

and demolished during works of extension of the

Port of Beirut The Port of Beirut () is the main port in Lebanon on the eastern part of the Saint George Bay on Beirut's northern Mediterranean coast, west of the Beirut River. It is one of the largest and busiest ports on the Eastern Mediterranean. On 4 Augu ...

in the late 19th century.

History

Beirut's city walls were mentioned by

William of Tyre William of Tyre (; 29 September 1186) was a Middle Ages, medieval prelate and chronicler. As Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tyre, archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I of Tyr ...

at the time of its first conquest by the Crusaders in 1110. A first city castle appears to have been built in 1183–1185, following

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

's unsuccessful siege attempt in 1183 and probably under the leadership of

Raymond III of Tripoli Raymond III (1140 – September/October 1187) was count of Tripoli from 1152 to 1187. He was a minor when Nizari Assassins murdered his father, Count Raymond II of Tripoli. His cousin, King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, who was staying ...

. By the time Saladin came back and successfully took over Beirut in 1187, the city castle was well documented by chroniclers. In 1197 the city was retaken by the Crusaders, and in 1198 it came under the rule of John of Ibelin. The castle was described in 1212 by

Wilbrand of Oldenburg Wilbrand of Oldenburg (before 1180 - Zwolle, 26 July 1233) was a bishop of Paderborn and of Utrecht. Family Wilbrand was the son of Henry II, Count of Oldenburg-Wildeshausen, and Beatrix of Hallermund, daughter of Wilbrand I, Count of Loccum-Ha ...

, following its refurbishment by John. When

Mamluk Mamluk or Mamaluk (; (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-so ...

troops captured the city from the Crusaders in 1291, they partly demolished the fortifications, but the Mamluk Sultan Barquq built a new tower on the site in the late 14th century. In the 1770s,

Jazzar Pasha Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar (, c. 1720–30s7 May 1804) was the Acre-based Bosniak Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet from 1776 until his death in 1804 and the simultaneous governor of Damascus Eyalet in 1785–1786, 1790–1795, 1798–1799, and 1803 ...

destroyed part of the castle but then rebuilt the tower again. In 1840 during the Egyptian–Ottoman War, the castle was bombed and damaged by a British fleet. As evidenced by maps of that period, the old castle by then was known as "land castle" and the tower on an islet known as "sea castle." In 1887, following decades of rapid economic expansion driven by

trade liberalization Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist political parties generall ...

and silk exports, the

Municipality of Beirut Beirut City Hall, also known as the Municipality of Beirut, is a landmark building built in downtown Beirut, Lebanon in 1924,A Global History of Architecture By Francis D. K. Ching, Mark M. Jarzombek, Vikramaditya Prakas page 712 and has becom ...

obtained authorization from the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

to enlarge and modernize the

. All castle structures and the promontories on which they were built were entirely flattened between 1889 and 1895 to construct a road and railway that served the new port facilities, now . The area that had laid at the foot of the castle promontory became a market for bulk trade in grains, sugar, rice, coffee and tea, known as ''Souk Mal-al-Qabban''. Excavations conducted in 1995 in the context of development of

Beirut Central District The Beirut Central District is the historical and geographical central business district, core of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Also called downtown Beirut, it has been described as the “vibrant financial, commercial, and administrative ...

uncovered remains of the Beirut (Land) Castle’s basement.

Description

The castle was built upon a promontory on the sea, to the north of the ancient Tell of Beirut and west of the present-day intersection of Charles Helou Avenue and Al-Shuhada Street. A separate fortification known as ''Burj al-Musallah'' was built on an islet that was located roughly on the intersection of Helou Avenue and Foch Street. In the Crusader period, a 6-meter-wide moat separated the southwestern tower from the lower city, thus protecting the castle from attacks.

History

Description

See also

Notes

Further reading