Tower 1 was entirely reconstructed with new materials in the mid-1980s, starting from its uncovered foundations; it was modeled after the well-preserved Tower 3 in the middle of the Citadel's south wall. The following description by King reflects its condition in the middle of the twentieth century.
The southwestern corner of the enclosure is occupied by a conspicuous and well-preserved building of two stories, comprising a number of small cross-vaulted rooms. Sauvaget considers, on the basis of internal and documentary evidence, that these formed the private quarters of the ʾAyyūbid sultans.
The ground floor of the palace is now used for stores and regimental offices, and the upper story for barrack rooms.
If one mounts to the level of the rampart-walk by way of the roofs of the modern buildings along the west curtain, one finds oneself in a wide corridor passing around the end of the palace and spanned by an added vault springing from the palace wall on the one side and a strong and high wall of masonry on the other. No superstructure exists above this vault. The outer support of the vault is none other than the truncated rear wall of the shattered Tower 1. The outer part of this tower is completely demolished, and little can be said about it except that it capped the angle without leaving any internal projection and thus formed a letter L in plan, closely similar to the mirror image of Tower 5.
Photo credit: Herzfeld 1914.
D. J. Cathcart King. The Defences of the Citadel of Damascus; a Great Mohammedan Fortress of the Time of the Crusades. Archaeologia, Volume XCIV, 1951 (p 57-96).
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