How Strong Was Strong Mountain? Preliminary Remarks on the Possible Location of the Mamluk Siege Position at Montfort Castle

CHAPTER 26 How Strong was Strong Mountain? Preliminary Remarks on the Possible Location of the Mamluk Siege Position at Montfort Castle

Rafael Lewis

During a topographic and landscape archaeology sur- logical site to the broader landscape, including every vey, thoughts on Montfort Castle’s topographical infe- archaeological feature in it. The field methods used riority led to some preliminary1 ideas on the manner in Landscape Archaeology and the Archaeology of in which the Teutonic Order dealt with this crucial Conflicts includes the equal examination of all man- weakness, and what would have been the best loca- made features, not excluding modern elements which tion for the Mamluks to position their siege machinery are documented and studied. The underlying concept and camps during the two assaults of the castle in May of this approach is that in order to understand the 1266 and June 1271.2 meaning of a single find or feature, we need to under- Montfort Castle is isolated from main roads, com- stand the environment in which they were found and mercial centres and major settlements. The problem how they relate to it. The manner in which objects of its isolated location has been raised in the past.3 In are scattered in the landscape is examined strati- order to better understand the castle in its setting, I graphically, but also according to their focal, discrete or decided to go beyond the well-secured boundaries of expanded nature. A path, for example, can usually be the castle’s walls, to raise my head (methodologically) described as a discrete or expanded feature, but a road from the trenches, bulks and archaeological artefacts, junction where a few such features meet, is usually of and look at this specific topic of inquiry from a wide a focal nature. The analysis of the landscape through perspective. these perspectives helps the researcher understand the way in which features are scattered through the landscape. This enables the archaeologist to define The Method of Research the common characteristic and more interesting anomalies in the landscape. In order to cross the conventional boundaries of the archaeological site, I used survey techniques which come from two interacting archaeological The Survey disciplines—Landscape Archaeology and its offshoot, Archaeology of Conflicts.4 In these two archaeological A Landscape Archaeology survey examines the region disciplines the focus turns from the specific archaeo- from the macro, and then zooms down to the micro.5 At first the area of this research (New Israel Grid: south-west 220000/771000; north-east 223000/773000) 1 A detailed survey of the region around Montfort was conducted was divided into five different zones based on the by the writer in 2014–2016. This article is a preliminary study main topographic features (Plate 26.1).6 While doing which will be expanded in a future publication. 2 On these sieges see above, Chapter 3. so, the topographic inferiority of the castle became 3 See Benvenisti, 1970, pp. 333; Benvenisti’s introduction, in the facsimile edition of Dean, 1982. Fig. 5, 6; Frankel, 1988, pp. 265– that were made by humans in a landscape during a campaign 267; Boas, 2012, pp. 15–16; Lotan, 2012, pp. 187–194. are the subjects under investigation. See Lewis, 2012. 4 Also known as “Battlefield Archaeology”, the use of the term 5 Wilkinson, 2003, pp. 3–14; Gibson, 1995, pp. 211–222. “Archaeology of Conflict” is more suitable in the case of siege 6 Zone 1—the Castle Spur, called El Qurein or Qal’at Qurein on operations. The term “Battlefield Archaeology” should only the mandatory map 17/27 scale 1:20,000; Zone 2—the Southern be used in the study of open battlefields such as the Battle of Spur, called Khallat Khuzam on the mandatory map 17/27 Hattin (3–4 July 1187), the Battle of Arsuf (7 September 1191) scale 1:20,000; Zone 3—the Plateau (where the two spurs meet or the Battle of Ain Jalut (3 September 1260). Archaeology of at the east), called El Bartut on the mandatory map 17/27 Conflicts observes the overall landscape in which conflicts took scale 1:20,000; Zone 4—Goren Park (overlooking the castle from place, surveys and documents it, and then analyses the differ- west), called Khaliat ed Dāira on the mandatory map 17/27 ent archaeological features within a given area. The changes scale 1:20,000; Zone 5—Wadi Kziv.

plate 26.1 Topographical map of the castle and its surroundings. courtesy of the Israel Survey and Mapping Department. even more evident. Montfort was built on a steep spur (Zone 1) extending north-west, 180 m above the stream of Nahal Kziv (Zone 5). The slopes of the spur are very steep on the northern and southern sides but have a more gradual decline on the west. On the east a narrow saddle joins the spur to the rest of the hill- top that extends in the direction of the modern village of Mi’ilya and its medieval castle, Castellum Regis. The castle is encircled by hills from its other three directions. The Kziv Stream (Zone 5) encircles the castle from north-east to the south-west where it meets a deep tributary wadi that runs from east to west along the southern slope of the spur. The hills in Zone 4—Park Goren, to the north and west of the castle—are a distance of 350–500 m from the castle’s outer wall. To the south of the castle and almost parallel to it runs the southern spur (Zone 2) that eventually connects to the castle’s spur (Zone 1) at a wide saddle at the east (the Plateau—Zone 3). The two adjacent spurs and the wadi between them can be defined as being of a discrete nature (i.e. running plate 26.2 Aerial photograph of the castle and its surroundings. courtesy of the Survey of Israel. along each other to the south-west with almost no archaeological interaction between them, the features on the castle spur being isolated from the landscape) (Plate 26.2).7 between them (This may suggest that the agricultural features on the southern spur predate the building of the castle, which Zones 1 and 2 are divided by the wadi between them, was inserted artificially and imposed on the landscape). The Zones 1, 2 and 4 are divided by Nahal Kziv. only place where one can cross from the southern spur to the 7 The agricultural terraces on the southern spur and the castle castle spur is on the plateau at the east (zone 3); and south on a are cut off from each other by the wadi and road which runs path that climbs from Nahal Kziv in the west and on the lowest