Showing posts with label Travel (Not Synth Related). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel (Not Synth Related). Show all posts

Thursday, 6 November 2014

Citadel of Salah Ed-Din - Syria


The Citadel of Salah Ed-Din (Arabic: قلعة صلاح الدين‎, Qal'at Salah al-Din) are the remains of a castle in Syria. I visited the site in 2000. It's inaccessible now due to the current war
I wonder what it looks like now? Probably still a ruin.

 This lonely pillar was carved out of the surrounding bedrock in the 11th century.
It's the support for the drawbridge.

I visited it from the city of Latakia, (30 km east).

It's a crusader castle ruin. In 1188 it fell to the forces of Saladin after a three-day siege.
What's left are these ruins.

The site is beautiful. Situated in a deep ravine, it's surrounded by forest.
Built on a ridge some 700 metres (2,300 ft) long between two deep gorges.[2] It guarded the route between Latakia and the city of Antioch


In 2006, the castles of Qal'at Salah El-Din and Krak des Chevaliers was recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The spur on which the castle is built is connected to a plateau in the east.


It was part of the Principality of Antioch, one of the four states founded by the Crusaders after the First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099.

 My taxi driver & his trusty Peugot. 
The car is parked in the man made trench build by the crusaders which surrounds the site.

The internal ruins.

On 27 July 1188 Saladin and his son, Az-Zahir Ghazi, arrived at Saône with an army and laid siege to the castle. The Muslim forces adopted two positions outside the castle: 


Saladin was positioned on the plateau opposite the castle's east side.  His son faced the north of the castle's lower enclosure.


It is told that the seige engines hurled stones weighing between 50 and 300 kilograms (110 and 660 lb) This onslaught lasted two days, causing significant damage. 



The stone "needle" is 28 metres tall

The 28 m deep ditch, cut into the living rock





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Saturday, 1 November 2014

The Herodium - "Herod's Tomb"

It's still a mystery today.
Where is King Herod buried?
These are picks I took of the Herodium (just outside Bethlehem).


The approach from Bethlehem.

In the distance that mountain with the flat top is the Herodian.  It's told that Herod forced his slaves to make two hills into this one huge mountain in order to display his power over God’s.


Herod the Great, the king of Judea ruled around the time of Jesus. He was the Jewish proxy ruler of the Holy Land under imperial Roman occupation from 37 B.C.  Credited in history for the "massacre of the innocents".

He lived from 74 BC to 4 BC building lavish building projects including the fortress of Masada and the second temple. He did so by burdening his people with heavy taxes. 
The Herodian

The Roman Jewish historian Josephus describes it thus:

"This fortress, which is some sixty stadia[6] distant from Jerusalem, is naturally strong and very suitable for such a structure, for reasonably nearby is a hill, raised to a (greater) height by the hand of man and rounded off in the shape of a breast. At intervals it has round towers, and it has a steep ascent formed of two hundred steps of hewn stone. Within it are costly royal apartments made for security and for ornament at the same time. At the base of the hill there are pleasure grounds built in such a way as to be worth seeing, among other things because of the way in which water, which is lacking in that place, is brought in from a distance and at great expense. The surrounding plain was built up as a city second to none, with the hill serving as an acropolis for the other dwellings." 

(The Wars of the Jews I, 21, 10; Antiquities of the Jews XIV, chapter 13.9).

Looking into the Herodian from the outer wall







Part of the underground water storage system.


 Here are some very large boulders apparently used by rebel Jews.

The Herodium was conquered and destroyed by the Romans in 71 CE. At the beginning of the Bar Kokhba revolt sixty years later, Simon bar Kokhba declared Herodium as his secondary headquarters.




Herodion excavations


Herod was considered one of the greatest builders of his time. The largest of the four towers was built on a stone base 18 meters in diameter.




Ampitheatre - part of the outer wall






Wiki info

For more travel links click here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/travel-postcards-index-my-travel.html

Sunday, 19 October 2014

Cuba - Havana 1

A few pics taken on a recent trip to Cuba.
The beautiful old buildings are undergoing graceful decay.

















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