38. SYRIAN CASTLES

Photographs by T. E. Lawrence (1909-11)

(i) Kalaat el Hosn, the great talus, looking east (August 1909)

Lawrence spent his twenty-first birthday at Kalaat el Hosn (also known by its French name, the Crac des Chevaliers). He described it in a letter home as 'the finest castle in the world: certainly the most picturesque I have seen - quite marvellous: I stayed 3 days there, with the Kaimmakam, the governor: a most-civilised-French-speaking-disciple-of-Herbert-Spenser-Free-Masonic-Mohammedan-Young-Turk: very comfortable - .’¹

Literature: Crusader Castles, ill. fp. 47.

(ii) Safita from the east (August 1909)

The next castle Lawrence visited after Kalaat el Hosn was Safita: 'a Norman keep, with ORIGINAL battlements: the like is not in Europe: such a find.'¹

Literature: Crusader Castles, ill. fp. 37.

(iii) Markab, looking east on the southern face (August 1909)

Lawrence reached Markab (also written Margat) in late August 1909, and found 'a castle about as bit as Jersey I fancy: one wanted a bicycle to ride round it.'¹ He later noted beside this photograph: 'A sort of beehive, underneath is a sheikh’s tomb.'²

Literature: Crusader Castles, ill. fp. 49.

(iv) Urfa castle, the moat (1909 or 1911)

Lawrence visited Urfa on the walking tour in 1909 'and found there the only 2 beaked towers in all N. Syria.'¹ He took a small number of photographs (shortly afterwards his camera was stolen). In 1911 he revisited Urfa and took more photographs, for his projected book on crusader castles. It is not certain on which visit this view of the moat was taken. A note in the 1911 diary for 15 July records photographing the eastern half of the south side of the moat from the bottom with a wide angle lens. Lawrence added: 'This makes complete my photographs of the moat, all but the N. side.'²

Literature: Crusader Castles; HL ill. fp. 240.

(v) Aleppo, entrance to the citadel

On his 1909 tour Lawrence reached Aleppo with some relief: it was 'European, with a decent hotel: much washing, for I hadn't had a bath for ten days (or any other kind of wash!)'.¹ He revisited Aleppo on many occasions, since it was the closest major city to the British Museum's Carchemish excavations where he worked from 1911 to 1914. This photograph may date from one of these later visits.

Literature: Crusader Castles II, ill. between pp.60 and 61.

Lawrence almost certainly took both these photographs during a walking tour of Syrian castles made after his first season at Carchemish in 1911. His diary for 22 July, written at Birejik, noted: '[at 4 p.m.] went out to the top of the hill, and photographed the town walls, etc. from the S. The castle would be behind this hill a little to the L. Then went down into the valley and up hill again. Took the N. Half of the castle from the N.E., in the shade against the sun: and the S. half of the castle (both landward side) also from the N.E., a little further on than the one before, and under the same disadvantage of light. This finished my films loaded.'¹ Exhibit no. 38 (vii) is included in the published edition of Crusader Castles, but may have been added by Lawrence when he was revising the work for publication in 1911. His letters contain no reference to a visit to Birejik in 1909.

Literature: Oriental Assembly; (vi): HL, ill. fp. 257; (vii): Crusader Castles, ill. pl. 20.

(viii) Rum Kalaat, the Euphrates front (July 1911)

This is one of a series of photographs he took that day. He wrote: 'Then on to the mouth of the valley and took [a photograph] of the Euphrates front. This has a little domed building like a weli in the foreground. Felt sleepy, so went to cave, and slept till 2 p.m.’²

Literature: OA pp. 28-33; HL, ill. fp. 257.

Provenance: Liddell Hart papers; acquired 1973.