Shawbak Castle

Shawbak Castle stands alone on a conical hill in the highlands of southern Jordan, visible from a long way off across bare ridges and terraced fields. It was the first fortress built by the Crusaders east of the Jordan River, raised in 1115 by Baldwin I of Jerusalem and originally named Montreal — the Royal Mountain.

Its position was chosen for control rather than comfort. The castle sits astride the King's Highway, the ancient road that carried caravans, pilgrims and armies between Damascus and the Red Sea. From here a garrison could tax or block the traffic passing between Egypt and Syria, and the Crusader kingdom held it for some seventy years.

In 1189, two years after the battle of Hattin, Shawbak surrendered to the forces of Salah al-Din after a siege that lasted well over a year. The defenders held out until, according to the chroniclers, they had eaten everything within the walls. The Ayyubids and after them the Mamluks rebuilt much of what stands today, adding towers, inscriptions and the carved Kufic bands that run around the outer walls.

Inside, the castle keeps its church, its gatehouse, cisterns cut into the rock and a remarkable spiral staircase of some 375 steps descending through the hill to a spring — an insurance policy against exactly the kind of siege that eventually took the place. Excavation and restoration continue, and the site remains one of the clearest records anywhere of a frontier that changed hands between two worlds.