AMMAN — During 200 years of Crusades in the Levant, many fortifications were built as the first landscapes of that historical period. However, European settlers lived in smaller communities in the countryside, a topic that was not a major focus for historians and archaeologists. Rural settlements were overlooked in the past but in the recent period, experts specialised in mediaeval history began to pay attention to the life of Frankish communities.
According to Hungarian archaeologist Janos Balasz, this neglect is all the more regrettable as written sources on the extent of the 12th and 13th century pattern of settlement, or about the presence of the European population are almost nonexistent, save some scanty details preserved in a few mediaeval documents.
As opposed to the lack of written sources, the few old scholarly descriptions and the recent field survey prove that both the concentration of the remains of the mediaeval settlement pattern and their stat of preservation are quite unique in the Levant.
“These practically undocumented remains are our almost sole information on the subject and they are quite endangered. The nature of the subject implies that the research is going to be a long one, in which the processing of the well-hidden sources [mediaeval, contemporary and carthographic] must be combined with an extensive fieldwork,” Balasz underlined.
The rural communities were part of the bigger defensive system in which centre was a major fortification(s). Consequently, European settlers tried to form the same feudal system that existed in their homeland.
Burg Miar Sakir
Located 14.5 kilometres southeast of Tartus, Burg Miar Sakir is one of the Crusader settlements. The most characteristic remains of the Crusader settlement pattern in the rural areas of the region are the small donjons.
“It is situated on the top of a hill 139 metres high above sea level with commanding views over the surrounding countryside,” Balasz continued, adding that the tower is amongst the few lesser sites mentioned only in the mediaeval Arab sources.
Miar was listed among the Muslim possessions in three texts of the treaties between Sultan Qaliwun and the leadership of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli after the 1270’s.
“Even the most detailed former scholarly works confined themselves to merely mentioning the existence of the ruins of a tower and the confused sentences of a recent Syrian guide book are not more informative either,” Balazs said, adding that the only part that survived from the Crusader tower is the big hall of the ground floor with its slightly pointed barrel vault.
“The outer perimeter of the Miar is approximately 11,5 x 15 metres, the thickness of the surviving walls varies around 2 metres,” the scholar said, adding that the dimensions of the remains, especially the thickness data exclude the existence of more than one storey above the ground floor. The northern and western wails of the ground floor stand to full hight. The upper sections of the eastern wail have disappeared from behind the vault having a north-south axis, and the southern wall has partly collapsed.
“Its standing parts are totally covered by the debris of the fallen parts and recent waste. The wails of the tower are constructed by the solid Crusader method- the cone made of rubble stone bounded by thick mortar, with a well- executed ashlar facing,” Balasz explained.
Most of the stones are of the so-called hagarramli (the sandstone consisting of sea sand), but a few ashlars, especially those on the corners were carved of the much harder limestone.
According to the villagers, there was a ground floor entrance opening on the southern wall of the tower buto though it seems quite probable, the verification needs some clearing works to be done.
“Otherwise, the partly filled up ground floor hall had two openings, one slit-window on the western and one on the northern facade, rather for ventilation than for defensive purposes,” Balasz elaborated, adding that the interior walls are built of the ramli stone, and some canty remains of plastering can still be seen on them.
