ABSTRACT
In the desert of Syria and Jordan and along its western periphery there are the ruins of ca. 20 buildings, the so-called desert castles. Several of these sites were discovered by European travellers during the first half of the 19th century, who described them as 'exotic apparitions' in a strange and hostile environment, without inquiring into either their original function or the date of their construction. There is not, however, the same consensus when it comes to the function of the desert castles. Until the nineteen-thirties they were in general seen as the Umayyads' country seats or pleasure palaces in the clear air of the desert, where the ruling family would have been far away from the religious zealots of the cities and thus able to indulge in all those princely pleasures that must fill a pious Muslim with horror.
