ABSTRACT

By the end of Baybars’ reign fortresses were well integrated in the Mamluk military array. If there was ever a short period of trial and error it left little trace in early Mamluk fortifications. While the Mamluks evidently followed some existing patterns and models that

had long been used and improved by the Franks and Ayyubids, it is yet to be considered whether they brought new ideas into the field of fortifications, which had by then almost reached the peak of its development.1 As with the Ayyubid period, the few works dedicated to the subject of Mamluk

military architecture are mainly monographs giving a detailed description and analysis of a specific site. e Mamluk fortifications of Cairo and the central Syrian cities such as Damascus and Aleppo have been explored and studied in greater detail. Deschamps carried out an extensive survey of Karak, al-Ṣubayba and Crac des Chevaliers (Ḥiṣn al-Akrād), but his emphasis was on the Crusader architecture of each site.2 Pringle surveyed and excavated towers on the Sharon plain that have a Mamluk building phase, but his research centered on the Crusader period. Hartal’s excavations at al-Ṣubayba concentrate on Bīlīk’s tower; where Mamluk construction methods are extensively described. Some new information has emerged in the past decade concerning the Mamluk architecture at the site of Ḥiṣbān in Jordan.3 During the late 1980s small excavations were conducted at Karak and at Shawbak, giving precise dating to some of the construction work carried out during the fourteenth century.4 Edwards has composed a short description of Mamluk construction work in Cilicia; his research, however, is dedicated to Armenian fortresses.5 Because the Mamluks mainly added to and built upon existing fortresses their

work has been consistently overlooked or else documented as a phase within Crusader, Ayyubid or Armenian fortresses. It has rarely been studied as an independent subject. Eight fortresses are discussed in this chapter (Map 3.4; Figure 4.1).6 Starting

from the Mamluk inland fortifications, Al-Ṣubayba is of particular importance, since the Mamluk construction is a direct continuation of the Ayyubid work. It is the only rural fortress in this study that was built by the Ayyubid rulers and was further restored and enlarged by the Mamluks, with no Frankish intervention.