Schaizar
| Schaizar | ||
|---|---|---|
 Entrance complex of the citadel of Shaizar (قلعة شيزر, DMG Qalʿat Šaizar ), one of the best preserved parts (2007) |
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| Creation time : | 10th century | |
| Castle type : | Ridge or summit castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Geographical location | 35 ° 16 '1.8 " N , 36 ° 34' 0.3" E | |
| Height: | 220 m | |
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Schaizar ( Arabic شيزر, DMG Šaizar , after English transcription also Shaizar or Shayzar ) is a village in Syria near Mhardeh . In the Middle Ages , it was a city and fortress ruled by the Banu Munqidh dynasty, which played an important role in Christian and Islamic politics during the Crusades .
history
Early history
Located on the Orontes River north of Hama near Mhardeh , Schaizar was an ancient city, mentioned in the Amarna letters as Senzar or Sezar. The hieroglyphic Luwian funerary inscription of the Kupapiyas, wife of a king Taitas, dates from the time of the Neo-Hittite states . The Greeks knew the city as Sidzara, but the Seleucid dynasty renamed it Larissa , after the city of the same name in Thessaly , from where many settlers came to the city. In the Roman Empire the city was renamed back to its old name, in the Byzantine Empire it was called Sezer. The Crusaders Latinized the name and made Caesarea out of it.
Schaizar fell to the Arabs in 638 and changed ownership several times between the Arabs and the Byzantines. In 969 the city was taken by the Byzantine ruler Nikephorus II , and in 999 by Basil II , after which the city finally represented the southern border of the Byzantine Empire and was ruled by the Bishop of Shayzar. In 1081 the city passed to the Banu Munqidh dynasty when 'Ali ibn Munqidh bought it from the bishop. The Byzantines besieged the city several times but could never get it back.
Shaizar among the Munqidhites
The Munqidithen controlled the territory east of Shaizar, the Alawite Mountains to the Mediterranean coast, there from the coastal cities of Latakia in the north to Tortosa in the south. During the First Crusade , the Emir of the Munqidiths helped the Crusaders traverse his land by providing guides and allowing them to buy horses, food, and other supplies. After the crusade, the Munqidhite kingdom bordered on the Principality of Antioch , which had been established by the Crusaders, and was thus the victim of raids from the direction of Antioch and the county of Tripoli . In 1106 the emirs of Schaizar, the brothers Sultan and Murschid, Wilhelm-Jordan of Tripoli were able to strike back and in 1108 and 1110 they had to bribe Tankred of Tiberias to make him leave the country. Tankred, however, built a castle on the nearby Tell ibn Ma'schar , from which he could closely monitor Shaizar.
When Radwan died in 1113, the assassins tried to seize the citadel of Shayzar while the emir was absent, but were repulsed by the people of Shayzar. In 1119 Shayzar took part in a campaign against Antioch. When Baldwin II of Jerusalem was captured by the Ortoqids outside of Edessa in 1123 , he was held in Shaizar until his release the next year. As part of his own ransom, he also had to hand over his daughter Ioveta as a hostage, who remained in Shaizar until 1125 when her own ransom was paid. Since Schaizar was a peaceful place, Baldwin was allowed to visit his daughter. However, Shayzar was also friendly to his Islamic neighbors and therefore joined the area of Busuq of Mosul in 1125 . When his successor Zengi took office in 1127 and also claimed Aleppo , Shaizar recognized his sovereignty.
In 1137 the Byzantine emperor John II came with his army to the principality of Antioch to enforce his authority over Antioch, and promised the local prince Raimund of Antioch a principality that would consist of Shaizar, Aleppo, Homs and Hama if Antioch were to become Byzantine Rich returned. In April the Byzantine army besieged Shaizar. Raimund and Joscelin II of Edessa failed to help the emperor, while Zengi advanced in May with a relief army. Zengi's army cut off supplies from the imperial army, and although the Byzantines outnumbered Zengi, Johannes did not dare to attack them in order not to risk that the emir of Shaizar would conquer his siege engines. When John's soldiers had conquered the lower town of Schaizar, the Emir offered Johannes rich gifts, declared himself ready to formally recognize the emperor as a liege lord and to pay him annual tribute. Johannes agreed and withdrew, while Zengi's army withdrew after a few threatening gestures against Shaizar. In the following years, Shaizar was one of the few small emirates in Syria that was able to maintain its de facto independence from the Zengids .
The emirate lasted until 1157 when a powerful earthquake destroyed the citadel, killing almost the entire emir family who were about to celebrate a circumcision. The only survivors were the emir's wife and nephew Usama ibn Munqidh , who was on a diplomatic trip to Damascus at the time. The Assassins took control of the ruins and were defeated by the Crusaders in 1158, but quarrel between them forced them to abandon the siege. Nur ad-Din took over the ruins in his lands and rebuilt the city. In 1170 Schaizar was destroyed again by an earthquake, the remains were taken over by Saladin in 1174 . Schaizar was rebuilt, but in 1241 the city was sacked and destroyed by the Choresmians . The Mameluk Sultan Baibars took the city in 1260 and built it up further.
Emirs of Shaizar
- 1081: Sultan ibn 'Ali ibn al-Muqallad al-Kinani
- 1081-1082: 'Izz ad-Dawla Sadid al-Mulk ibn Munqidh
- 1082-1098: 'Izz ad-Dawla abu-l-Murhaf Nasr ibn Munqidh
- 1098–1137: Majd ad-Din abu Salamah Murschid ibn 'Izz ad-Dawla ibn Munqidh
- 1098–1154: 'Izz ad-Din abu-l-'Asakir Sultan ibn' Izz ad-Dawla ibn Munqidh
- 1154–1157: Taj ad-Dawla Nasr ad-Din Muhammad ibn Abi l-Asakir ibn Munqidh
The city of Schaizar
Contemporary description of the city during the Crusades
About the layout of the city
About the siege by the Crusaders in 1157, William of Tire wrote :
“The city of Shayzar lies above the same river called Orontes as the one that flows through Antioch. It is called Caesarea by some, and they also believe that it is the famous center of Cappadocia that was once ruled by Saint Basil of Caesarea, but those who think so are mistaken. For this Caesarea it takes more than fifteen days from Antioch. This city is in Koile Syria, a region separated from Cappadocia by several provinces. Also, the name is not Caesarea, but rather Caesara. It is one of the cities that belong to the Patriarchate of Antioch. It is very conveniently located. The lower part stretches across the plain, while the upper part with the citadel lies on the heights, which is large in size, but actually rather narrow. In addition to its natural defenses, the citadel is well fortified, with the river protecting it on one side and the city on the other. It is therefore completely impregnable. "
About life in the city
As for the residents, Wilhelm says:
"They had little knowledge of weapons, they had devoted themselves almost exclusively to trade."
Many of them were Christians who Wilhelm thinks suffered under the rule of the Muslims, but the Munqidithen seem to have been tolerant, so Muslims and (Orthodox) Christians lived peacefully side by side. A lively account of life in Shaizar comes from Prince Usamah, published in Kitab al-I'tibar , which gives a good insight into Islamic life in the 12th century. The Munqidhites are portrayed as patrons of literature who enjoyed hunting and other sports, but also liked to wage war with their Christian and Islamic neighbors in order to get along peacefully afterwards.
Todays situation
Below the ruins of the citadel there is still a village with a mosque . It is connected to the outside world via the trunk road from Suqailabiyya to Hama via the minibuses customary in Syria .
The citadel of Shaizar
In 2002, an Italian team of archaeologists from the University of Venice began excavations on the fortress site, which have been ongoing (as of 10/2010). Schaizar was chosen as the ideal excavation site for researching the development of Middle Eastern fortifications and settlements because the state of preservation is extraordinarily good despite the severe destruction in the Middle Ages and the ruins have remained almost untouched over the centuries.
The first documented fortifications on the ridge east of the settlement go back to the second half of the 10th century and are thus in the period of Byzantine rule. Only under the Munqidhites, however, were major construction projects implemented from 1081 onwards. After the strong destruction of the citadel by the earthquake of 1157, the castle was repaired as part of the extensive building program of Nur ad-Din . Recent restoration work was probably in 1261 under the Mamluk Baybars I. instead.
The citadel is a mixture of ridge and summit castle and is located on an extremely elongated, narrow mountain ridge that runs relatively straight from north-northeast to south-southwest. The fortress is barely 50 m wide, but almost 470 m long. To the west of the citadel lies the actual city at the foot of the mountain, to the east the terrain slopes steeply towards the Orontes.
The entrance is located at the northern end of the citadel and is one of the best preserved parts of the fortress (excavation section CA2; see the info box at the beginning of the article for a picture). A tower (CF8) rises above the entrance gate, which was one of the first parts of the complex to be restored. The facility behind it was cleared of larger rubble and is now freely accessible. In the middle of the ridge there is a largely well-preserved remnant of the tower; apart from that, most of the complex has been badly damaged. The excavation work is primarily focused on the third part of the well-preserved building, the palas-like building complex (CA1) at the southern end of the citadel.
literature
- Steven Runciman : History of the Crusades . CH Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39960-6 .
Web links
- Progetto Shayzar: Study and valorization of a Muslim citadel of the Middle Orontes (Syria)
- DAI project urban planning in the Roman and Islamic times: Shayzar / Larissa
Individual evidence
- ^ John David Hawkins : Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions vol. 1: Inscriptions of the Iron Age (= studies on Indo-European linguistics and cultural studies NF 8.1). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2000, pp. 416–419. ISBN 3-11-010864-X .
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 254 f.
- ↑ See Runciman, pp. 277 f.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 423.
- ↑ a b See Runciman, p. 427.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 435.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 455.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 477.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 478.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 479.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 519 ff.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 646.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 648.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 654.
- ↑ See Runciman, p. 692.
- ^ Wilhelm of Tire: Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. Book 18, chapter 18.
- ↑ Muriel Brunswig-Ibrahim: Syrien , Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-8317-1472-X
- ↑ a b c Cristina Tonghini: Progetto Shayzar: Study of a fortified Settlement in Bilad al-Sham. Foundation Max van Berchem, 2002, accessed April 1, 2011 .
- ↑ Rough measurement using Google Earth