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Hazard, H. W. (ed.) / Volume IV: The art and architecture of the Crusader states
(1977)
IV: Military architecture in the Crusader states in Palestine and Syria, pp. 140-164
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Page 164
164 A HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES IV capture by Hãrün ar-Rashid in 796, and some characteristic Armenian rounded towers; a narrow col joins the two enceintes and on it stands a rectangular tower, dated by an inscription to 1188. At Sarvantikar, which was in Antiochene hands from 1185 to 1194, the keep may be Frankish work. Lampron, north of Tarsus, was the center of a powerful fief and many of its living rooms are still standing, inside two rounded towers above the rock moat. Vailka, on an outcrop of rock, has round towers of comparatively slight projection, machicolations, and a right-angled entrance: the main building stage can probably be assigned to the prosperous reign of Leon II (1187-1219). At Corycus (Le Courc, Gorigos) there is an island fortress, partially built, according to an inscription, by Hetoum I in 1251, joined at one time by an aqueduct to a land citadel that incorporates a Roman gateway and a tower with a classical doorway. Farther west, in the sweep of the bay of Pamphylia, three fortified sites, still strikingly preserved, Adalia (Antalya), ' Alaya (Alanya), and Anamur, still have mucil thirteenth-century work, but Selchükid, not Armenian. ' Alaya, or more correctly ' Alã'iyah, takes its name from the Selchükid sultan ' Alä'-ad-Din Kai-Kobäd I (1220-1237), a great builder, whose octagonal tower, walls, and citadel still stand in remarkable completeness. Anamur still awaits exhaustive study, and certainly its excellent repair is partially due to later rebuilding (vol. II, 1962 ed., p1. lb), but its main plan and much of the work date from this impressive if brief period of Selchükid building initiative.37 No short summary can do justice to the tangled problem of crusading castles. Making the fullest allowance for previous work and native skill, the crusaders showed a resourcefulness and determina tion in building which must always be a considerable factor in any assessment of their achievement. The narrow stretch of country from the Taurus mountains to the gulf of Aqaba contains some of the most impressive of surviving medieval fortifications. That the crusaders were innovators in methods of defense remains unproven. They borrowed eclectically from the west and the east, from the present and the past, and they learned from a prolonged and rarely broken experience. They accomplished such achievements as Krak des Chevaliers, and, whatever the origin of its details, they were by then master builders. 37. Seton Lloyd and D. Storm Rice, Alanya (' Ala'iyya) (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Occasional Publications, 4; London, 1958).
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