Al-Faṣīl

The Old City possessed two parallel walls separated by a moat until the external one, otherwise known as Al-Faṣīl (1), was razed and the ditch partially filled by Ibrāhīm Pāšā, son and lieutenant of Muḥammad ʿAlī, the then governor of Egypt; this is testified to in the 1858 edition of Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Syria and Palestine (2). We also can add the original account of Reverend Josias Leslie Porter—author of Murray's Guide—in his 1855 work Five Years in Damascus, indicating the presence of an old tower in the southeast corner of the city walls (3) before it was pulled down by Ibrāhīm Pāšā for the purpose of using its stones as construction materials for his barracks.

Older still is the testimony of Chevalier d'Arvieux, who visited Damascus in 1660 and mentioned the presence of two ornamental lions as well as a fleur-de-lis on the external wall of the southeast tower (4), based on which the outer fortifications may date all the way back to the Mamlūk Sultan Baybars and the 13th century C.E. 

Finally, the foundations of the outer ramparts were uncovered during street works conducted in 2000.

The site featured in the attached photograph is numbered 943 on the map (5).

Photography: Bonfils circa 1870. 

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1. For a detailed study of al-Faṣīl, see Yamen Dabbour's "À la découverte de la braie et du fossé autour de l’enceinte de Damas" in Bulletin d'études orientales, Tome LXI (pp. 23-40). 

2. P. 478. 

3. P. 41. 

4. Tome II, p 447. See also "Portes et Murailles de Damas", p. 106, fig 91. 

5. Stefan Weber's "Damascus, Ottoman Modernity and Urban Transformation 1808-1918", Volume II p. 122.