Salah ad-Din

Salah ad-Din used the most modern fortress building techniques of that time to construct the original Citadel. Great, round towers were build protruding from the walls so that defenders could direct flanking fire on those who might scale the walls. The walls themselves were ten meters (30 ft) high and three meters (10 ft) thick.

The Bir Yusuf (Salah ad-Din’s Well) was dug in order to supply the occupants of the fortress with an inexhaustible supply of drinking water. Some 87 meters (285 ft) deep, it was cut though solid rock down to the water table. It is not simply a shaft. There is a ramp large enough so that animals could descend into the well in order to power the machinery that lifted the water. Regrettably, the well is closed to tourists these days.

Most of the fortification was built after Salah ad-Din’s rule, being added to by almost every invader including the British, some of whom destroyed much of what existed before them.