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Location of sites in the Shawbak and the Petra regions mentioned in the text (copyright: Google Earth).
Source publication
This paper presents the results of a study of the 12th-century Crusader Lordship of Transjordan and discusses the traditional view that the principal role of this region was that of frontier of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The possibility of applying the concept of frontier to Transjordan is discussed in the context of a debate on the relationship bet...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... what, at the time, was one of the main roads to Petra coming from Egypt. The castle of Al-Wuʿayra, on the other hand, was mainly intended to protect south-western accesses to the area, both from the King's Highway and through Petra, and to command the road between Wadi Musa and the northern Jabal Shara, beyond which Shawbak was located (Fig. ...
Context 2
... from those in the rest of the kingdom. All five castles analysed here (Karak, Shawbak, al-Wuʿayra, alHabis and al-Silaʿ are strongly protected by natural defences. At Karak and at the Petra castles, the Franks adopted the strategy of using the bedrock; isolating a rock spur from the surrounding space by cutting a moat through the connecting side (Fig. 13). This has the advantage of isolating the site artificially and not having to construct walls. In Petra, adopting the strategy of carving the sandstone, a locally well-developed system by the Nabataeans, was particularly efficient. While the fosse excavation at al-Wuʿayra has been interpreted as requiring an immense effort and ...
Context 3
... 1975: 3-5). Interestingly, the king also introduced, in this agreement, limitations to the power that he had conceded to the Lord of Transjordan: he kept for himself the revenues collected from the caravans passing through the country, as well as those from the Bedouins, and he also requested that John Gothman, a vassal who held lands in the region, Figure 13 Karak castle, aerial view from east (photo by R. Bewley, APAAME_20181014_RHB-0165). Reproduced with kind permission. ...
Context 4
... Rabba, Madaba and ʿAmman (Mayer 1990: 201). According to Mayer, during the Crusader period, in order to try and avoid the control and taxation from the main castles (Karak and Shawbak), the caravan road switched eastwards and passed through Maʿan, which was closer to, and therefore controlled by, Wadi Musa, rather than Shawbak (Mayer 1990: 128) (Fig. 3). Additionally, although during the Crusader period the traffic in the north-south direction had originally been controlled by Shawbak, once no longer directly controlled by the crown, when it became part of the lordship in the 1130s, control of the traffic switched to al-Wuʿayra Castle, which remained under direct control of the king ...
Context 5
... and access one branch of the caravan route. In summary, with the construction of Hormuz, al-Wuʿayra, as the main castle of the region, was able not only to prevent attacks from the south and west, but was also able to control caravans travelling those same roads, in addition to the caravans travelling to Maʿan through Baydha and the Wadi Nemela (Fig. 3). This is why the king only released possession of al-Wuʿayra and the Petra castles to the lordship in 1161 AD, and why he retained control over the trade routes controlled by the castle (Mayer 1990: 207). Raynauld's systematic disregard of the agreement between the king and Saladin was probably aimed at gaining control of the rich ...
Context 6
... In Wadi Musa, around 1160 AD, a village called Hara, which included a parish church of St. Moses, was administered by an individual with the Christian name of Saba, who was the son of George. The village was originally given to Saba by King Baldwin II (1118-1131); Saba most likely acted as the king's steward (Mayer 1990: 98-99; Pringle 11 The subject is currently being developed in separate publications, based on the observations in Sinibaldi (2014). 12 Such conclusions are the result of a study by this author and currently being prepared for publication, based on Sinibaldi 2014. ...
Citations
... In Jordan, Castles vary according to the era of their construction and expansion, so they can be divided into Islamic castles and Crusader castles, which differ in their characteristics, methods of construction, purpose, and architectural features [2,11]. The Crusader castles built by the Crusaders in Jordan in general are a prominent example of Crusader architecture. ...
Castles have always been considered the preoccupation of most civilizations in history, especially in Jordan, which is characterized by being a bridge linking civilizations. The architectural systems used in the formations and the design of the spaces that make up these castles formed the most important structural features of walls, ceilings, openings, and building materials, which are still standing until today. This makes it an experiment worth studying to deepen understanding and provide an additional benefit in Jordan's cultural heritage field. Castles in Jordan vary according to the era of their construction and expansion, so they can be divided into Islamic castles and Crusader castles, which differ in their characteristics, methods of construction, purpose, and architectural features. For more accurate details and thus the ability to compare these two categories depending on the determinants of the purpose of the castle building, the location, and the method of construction, this paper adopts the descriptive analytical method in addition to the comparative method. Ajloun Castle, Shobak Castle, Karak Castle, and Aqaba Castle were selected as case studies. The paper reviews a set of previous studies that contributed to documenting these castles, but none of them went into detail and provided a clear architectural comparison between these two types of castles, and here comes the importance of the paper. The study concludes with a set of differences between the castles in addition to a set of similarities. Despite the difference between these castles in some functional spaces, as the Islamic castles contain a chapel and the Crusader castles contain churches, many similarities were observed, which include the use of local building materials and the need for wells and fortified walls. These results contribute to increasing an understanding of the nature of castles in Jordan. This, therefore, helps decision-makers and designers to conserve and preserve the castles in Jordan by determining the main features and characteristics of the Islamic and the Crusader castles based on the function and the nature of their uses.
