Citadel of Damascus

Run your hand along the lower courses of the wall. The stone is cool, even in the afternoon heat. Each block is cut with a rough raised face, a cushion of stone that catches the light and throws a small shadow. Above you, the towers rise in a steady rhythm. Behind you, the noise of the old city carries on: hand carts, motor scooters, a shopkeeper calling out a price. You are standing at the edge of the walled city of Damascus, beside the fortress that guarded it for most of the last thousand years.

Here is the first surprise. Most great Middle Eastern citadels sit on a hill. Aleppo's fortress rises on a huge mound. Cairo's sits on a spur of rock. The Citadel of Damascus does not. It stands on flat ground, level with the streets around it. Its builders had no cliff to protect them, so they relied on thick walls, close-set towers and water. That choice shapes everything you see here.

The water came from the Barada, the small river that has given life to Damascus since ancient times. The river runs along the north side of the fortress. In the medieval period, its water fed a moat around the walls. Today the moat is mostly gone, and the city has grown right up to the stone. But stand on the northern side and picture it: a wide channel of water, a drawbridge, and soldiers watching from the towers above.

A fortress stood on this spot by the late eleventh century. At that time, Seljuk Turks controlled Damascus. The Seljuks were a Turkic dynasty from Central Asia, and they ruled much of the Middle East in that period. Their stronghold was smaller than the building in front of you. Very little of it is visible now, because later rulers wrapped new walls around the old core, and rebuilt much of it from the ground up.

That great rebuilding came in the early thirteenth century, under the Ayyubids. The Ayyubid dynasty was founded by Saladin, the sultan famous in Europe for his wars against the Crusaders. Saladin died in Damascus in 1193. After his death, his brother al-Adil took control and ordered a new and far stronger citadel. Most of the massive towers you see today come from that Ayyubid campaign of building.

Look closely at the masonry. The raised, roughly dressed faces on the blocks are called bossed stones. They made walls harder to damage and quicker to build. In some places, you may notice blocks that look older, with finer carving or different proportions. Builders in Damascus often reused stone from earlier Roman and Byzantine buildings. The city is very old, and its ruins were a ready quarry.

The second surprise is that this was never only a military building. Inside the walls, there were palaces, a mosque, baths, storerooms, workshops and housing for the garrison. A sultan could live here, govern from here, and hold out here during a siege. The citadel was a small city inside the city. When the gates closed, the people within could survive for a long time.

That ability was tested many times. In 1260, the Mongols reached Damascus and damaged the fortress. Soon afterwards, the Mamluks, a dynasty of soldier-sultans based in Cairo, drove the Mongols out of Syria. The Mamluk sultan Baybars repaired the citadel and made it a key base again. Around 1400, the Central Asian conqueror Timur, known in the West as Tamerlane, took Damascus. The city suffered terribly, and the fortress was damaged once more.

Under the Ottomans, who ruled Syria for roughly four centuries, the citadel slowly lost its role as a royal seat. It became barracks for soldiers. Later, in the twentieth century, it served as a prison, and it stayed a prison for decades. For many Damascenes, this building did not mean sultans and Crusades. It meant a closed, guarded place that ordinary people did not enter.

The prison closed in the later twentieth century, and work began to restore the fortress and open it to visitors. Restoration is slow and careful work. You may see sections that look newly cleaned, next to sections still dark with age. Some walls stand complete, while others show gaps and repairs. Those differences are worth noticing. They show the long life of the building, and the many hands that have worked on it.

Now turn toward the open square in front of the walls. A large bronze statue of Saladin on horseback stands here. It is a modern work, from the late twentieth century. Behind the sultan, figures of defeated Crusader knights sit on the ground. The statue is a strong political image. It links modern Damascus to Saladin's victories, and to his memory as a defender of the city.

Saladin himself is buried only a short walk away. His mausoleum stands in a small garden beside the Umayyad Mosque, one of the oldest great mosques in the world. To reach it, many visitors walk through the covered Souq al-Hamidiyya, the long market street that begins near the citadel. Under its high arched roof, you pass stalls of fabric, sweets, perfume and household goods. The fortress, the market and the mosque form one connected walk through history.

Before you move on, stand still for a moment and look up at the nearest tower. Count the courses of stone. Find a block that looks older than the others. Listen to the city around you, which never stops for the fortress. Then, as you walk toward the souq, look back once. From a little distance, the walls look low and heavy. They were built to last, and they have lasted.