Travel Guide Qalaat Shaizar

Situated between Hama and Apamea, Shaizar castle, known as an important Arab resistance centre during the crusades, occupied a strategic site. The Franj even settled positions in the mountains facing Shaizar to monitor him. The castle belonged to a local clan, the Banu Mounquidh, whose emirs concluded in 1110 a verbal non-aggression pact with Tancrède. After the earthquake of 1157 which destroyed almost entirely the castle, Noureddin was charged with repairing the damage.An earthquake in 1170, then the first Mongolian invasion in 1260 contributed to his final ruin. Baïbars and his successor Qalaoon were at the origin of the restoration of the castle as we see it today.