The Castle of Saint Louis, also known as Qalaat al Muizz or the Land Castle, is a ruined

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

Sidon Sidon ( ; he, צִידוֹן, ''Ṣīḏōn'') known locally as Sayda or Saida ( ar, صيدا ''Ṣaydā''), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

. It was built in 1254 by French

crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

on the site of an earlier

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dy ...

fortress, and was altered a number of times until the 17th century.

History

The site now occupied by the Castle of St. Louis is said to have been the acropolis of the ancient city. Some remains of this acropolis still exist, including a theater. The citadel was probably completely demolished and then rebuilt by the Arabs. To the south of the citadel is a mound of debris called Murex Hill. A talus of crushed shells of ''murex'' shells (correctly, specimens of ''

Bolinus brandaris ''Bolinus brandaris'' (originally called ''Murex brandaris'' by Linnaeus and also Haustellum brandaris), and commonly known as the purple dye murex or the spiny dye-murex, is a species of medium-sized predatory sea snail, an edible marine gastr ...

'' and ''

Hexaplex trunculus ''Hexaplex trunculus'' (previously known as ''Murex trunculus'', ''Phyllonotus trunculus'', or the banded dye-murex) is a medium-sized sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex shells or rock snails. It is included ...

'') along the western slope can still be seen. This artificial mound (100 m. long and 50 m. high) was formed by the accumulation of refuse from the purple dye factories of Phoenician times. Mosaic tiling at the top of the mound suggests that Roman buildings were erected there when the area was no longer used as the city's dumping ground. Part of the hill today is covered by the cemetery of the Muslim Shiite community of Sidon. The site of the citadel became a fortress in the 10th century, when

Fatimid Caliph This is a list of an Arab dynasty, the Shi'ite caliphs of the Fatimid dynasty (909–1171). The Shi'ite caliphs were also regarded at the same time as the imams of the Isma'ili branch of Shi'a Islam. Family tree of Fatimid caliphs ...

Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah Abu Tamim Ma'ad al-Muizz li-Din Allah ( ar, ابو تميم معد المعزّ لدين الله, Abū Tamīm Maʿad al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, Glorifier of the Religion of God; 26 September 932 – 19 December 975) was the fourth Fatimid calip ...

fortified it and gave it the name Qalaat al Muizz. The castle as it is today was built in 1254 by crusaders during the Frankish occupation of Sidon. The French king,

Louis IX Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the d ...

, better known as St. Louis, appears to have spent a long time at the castle, and this is perhaps why the site is named after him. A mass grave from the period was discovered by archaeologists in 2021. Mikulski RNR, Schutkowski H, Smith MJ, Doumet-Serhal C, Mitchell PD (2021) Weapon injuries in the crusader mass graves from a 13th century attack on the port city of Sidon (Lebanon). ''PLoS ONE''. 16(8): e0256517. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256517. When the Arabs reoccupied the city, the castle was restored. It was damaged later on by the

Mamluks Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') i ...

, and was extensively rebuilt by

Fakhr-al-Din II Fakhr al-Din ibn Qurqumaz Ma'n ( ar, فَخْر ٱلدِّين بِن قُرْقُمَاز مَعْن, Fakhr al-Dīn ibn Qurqumaz Maʿn; – March or April 1635), commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II ( ar, فخر الدين ال ...

in the 17th century. The castle was then looted a number of times, leaving the structure in ruins. Part of the castle collapsed during the end of the Ottoman era. The castle served as a shelter for refugees of the

1948 Palestinian exodus In 1948 Estimates of the Palestinian Refugee flight of 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians, Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Mandatory Palestine, Palestine's Arab population – Causes of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, were expelled ...

. It was further damaged by Israeli shelling. Plans are being made to restore the castle.

References

{{Castles in Lebanon Crusader castles Castles in Lebanon Ruined castles in Lebanon Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon Sidon District