ABSTRACT

The Templars' activity in protecting pilgrims on the road between Jerusalem and the River Jordan in the twelfth century is attested by both documentary and archaeological evidence. This chapter focuses on the road by which travellers reached Jerusalem from Jaffa and the coastal plain. In Roman times there were two principal ones: a northern route passing through Mod'in and the Beth Horon pass to connect with the Nablus road at Hawanit, north of Jerusalem. The first Templar castle that late twelfth-century travellers from Jaffa to Jerusalem would have reached before they came to Lydda was Yazur. Yazur occupies a small hillock next to the main Jaffa to Jerusalem road. Since the abandonment of the Arab village in 1948, the central part of the site has been cleared and laid out as a park. The castle was rebuilt in 1132-3 by Patriarch Warmund and the people of Jerusalem, during the absence of King Fulk in Antioch.