Our Visit to Kerak Castle,JORDAN

From Wadi Mujib , we drove forward to reach the town of Kerak,the location of the famous Kerak Castle.

The castle map at the entrance....read it before exploring the castle....will be of great help

History of Kerak Castle...read it....great help to know the castle and the place

 Kerak was the capital of the Biblical kingdom of Moab. Perched atop a steep hill, Kerak is a predominantly Christian town dominated by the largest and best preserved of the Crusader castles in the region.

 Standing 900 meters above sea level, the castle was built by the Crusaders in 1142 AD. Crusaders essentially were from Germany, Belgium, France and some other parts of Europe. Karak castle is a dark maze of stone-vaulted halls and endless passageways. The castle offers an impressive insight into the architectural military genius of the Crusaders. 

View of the town from the castle

Main Entrance Gate

While the castle we see today essentially dates back to the 12^th century, Kerak has been a fortress since Biblical times. The Bible relates how the King of Israel and his allies from Judah and Edom ravaged Moab and besieged its King Mesha in the fortress of Kir Heres, as Kerak was then known.

Centuries later, it took the Crusaders some twenty years to erect their vast castle. Once finished in 1161, it became the residence of the Lord of Transjordan, by then the most important part of the Crusader kingdom, rich in produce and tax revenues. After withstanding several sieges in the early 1170s, Kerak came under the rule of Reynald of Chatillon, a lord who became known for his recklessness and barbarism. Breaking all treaties, he began looting merchant caravans and Mecca-bound pilgrims, attacked the very homeland of Islam – the Hijaz – and raided Arabian ports on the Red Sea, even threatening Mecca itself. Saladin, the ruler of Syria and Egypt, reacted swiftly. He took the town of Karak by force, burned it down and almost managed to storm the castle as well.

The various tunnels and passages

Kerak Castle is a typical example of Crusader architecture, with Romanesque-style stone vaults, numerous corridors, and strong doorways. The Crusader parts of the ruins are mostly on the upper level and can be identified by their dark volcanic tufa; later Arab additions are in white limestone.

Through a massive door (ask at the ticket office), steps lead down to vast, dimly-lit, vaulted rooms and corridors underground.

The upper courtyard includes the remains of a Crusader chapel and provides excellent views over the Jordanian landscape to the Dead Sea.

The west wing of the complex is home to the small Kerak Archaeological Museum, which displays artifacts excavated at the site.

Stairs leading to underground tunnel

Walls of the castle made of strong big stones

The big stone of the walls

We took nearly 2hrs to explore nicely the castle. We enjoyed walking, exploring, clicking pictures of the  tunnels, corridors, strong stone walls of the castle and the stone vault of the castle chapel. Even my daughter (2yrs 3mnths then) loved to walk and move around.

History of Kerak,JORDAN

The magnificent Crusader fortress of Kerak - Crak des Moabites, or Le Pierre du Desert to Crusaders - soars above its valleys and hills like a great ship riding waves of rock. But Kerak's origins go back long before the Crusaders; the earliest remains are Iron Age, shortly after the Exodus, when this was a part of Moab. It was known as Kir-Haraseth, Kir-heres, or Kir, and its doom was prophesied by Isaiah, who mentions its 'raisin-cakes', presumably a local specialty. Then it falls out of history until the Byzantine period, when it was important enough to have an archbishop.

It was the Crusaders who made Kerak (biblical Charach Mouba) famous.The fortress, located 124 km south of Amman was built in 1142 by Payen le Bouteiller, lord of Montreal and of the province of Oultre Jourdain, on the remains of earlier citadels, which date back to Nabataean times. He made Kerak the new capital of the province, for it was superbly situated onthe King's Highway,where it could control all traffic from north and south and grow rich by the imposition of road-tolls.

There were -as there are today- two parts of Kerak, both contained within stout walls, but the citadel and its fortress are separated from the town by a deep dry moat. The fortress is typically Crusader, with dimly lit stone-vaulted rooms and corridors leading into each other through heavy arches and doorways. The best preserved are underground, and to be reached through a massive door (ask at the ticket office).

The castle in itself is more imposing than beautiful, though it is all the more impressive as an example of the Crusaders' architectural military genius. Each stronghold was built to be a day's journey from its neighbor. At night, a beacon was lit at each castle to signal to Jerusalem that it was safe.

As the visitor enters the modern gate, one path leads down to the stairs to the lower courtyard and lower vaults, and a second path leads to the upper level. The ruins of the upper level are attributed to the Crusader period, and the staircases leading to the underground level of the upper courtyard provide access to Mamluk architecture complexes, most of which were probably associated with a palace. Among these ruins are a well-preserved school with an adjoining mosque.

All the inhabitants of the town could gather for protection within the citadel in times of danger - as they did in 1173 when the Zengid ruler Nureddin attacked the castle. His siege was unsuccessful, as were later attempts by Saladin in 1183 (when the marriage of the heir of Kerak was taking place inside, and Saladin chivalrously kept his siege-engines off the bridal tower), and again in 1184. It was not until the end of 1188, after a siege of more than a year, that Kerak finally surrendered to the Muslims.

Kerak's most famous occupant was Reynald de Chatillon, whose reputation for treachery, betrayal and brutality is unsurpassed. When King Baldwin II (who signed a truce with Saladin) died, his son, a 13-year-old leper, sued for peace with Saladin. The Leper King, however, died without a heir, and in stepped Reynald, who succeeded in the early 1180's in winning the hand of Stephanie, the wealthy widow of Kerak's assassinated regent.

Reynald promptly defied the truce with Saladin, who returned with a huge army, ready for war. Reynald and King Guy of Jerusalem led the Crusader forces and suffered a massive defeat. Reynald was taken prisoner and beheaded by Saladin (the only Crusader king or lord to be executed by Saladin himself), marking the beginning of the decline in Crusader fortunes.

In 1263 the Mamluk Sultan Baybars took Kerak. The Arab traveler Ibn Battuta, who visited it in 1355, was much impressed by the castle's strength, and said that it was also called "The Castle of the Raven". Under Ottomans it was ruled by local families until 1840, when Ibrahim Pasha son of Mohammad Ali of Egypt took it, greatly damaging its defenses. After World War I, Kerak was a British administrative center until Emirate of Transjordan was established in 1921. It remains the center of a large district.

Kerak is still a largely Christian town, and many of today's Christian families trace their origins back to the Byzantines. There is a small but interesting museum in the castle, which is one of the finest of its type surviving today.