Citadel of Damascus, Tower VI

Tower 4 is essentially al-ʿĀdil's; less well preserved than its neighbor Tower 3, it is still in excellent condition and a most imposing monument to ʾAyyūbid skill and energy.

Beyond this point the precincts of the prison begin. Presumably it was the necessity of the latter that have led to curtain 4-5 being much lower in height.

The difficulty of visiting and exploring buildings in use for prison purposes made King's study of this part of the Citadel rather limited (1), as he was unable to penetrate inside either of towers 5 and 6; in the case of Tower 6, this was no particular loss, as this tower is another example of this type already dealt with at length.

Tower 6 is the smallest of its type (2). The parapet has been destroyed from the level of the corbels to the brattices. These corbels show that the tower was more weakly machicolated than any of the others which retain traces of this sort. The tower was a jail block when inspected from the outside by King in the early 1940s, with a modern building of one story superimposed on its roof.

The attached photograph (3) is an east-to-west view of the east wall of the Citadel.

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1. King's visits were effected in 1942 and 1943. 

2. Dimensions: 21.5 × 14 meters. 

3. Bonfils? perhaps in the late 1870s.

 

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).