Historical Builder › Castles › Margat Castle
How Long Did It Take to Build Margat Castle?
Short answer: about 99 years, from 1186 to 1285. This period is our own estimate of the main building phase; the sources do not give one clear start and end.
A secret tunnel is said to run from the castle to a watchtower down the hill. No evidence of it has turned up.
What the sources say about the building period
Site fortified 1062; sold to the Hospitallers 1186; major rebuilding in the early 13th century; taken by the Mamluks 1285. Wikipedia Secondary source
Stone and crew in numbers
- Country and type
- Syria, castle
- Stone in the walls
- 50,000 to 90,000 m³ Estimate
- For comparison
- about 28 Olympic pools of stone, or 7,000 truckloads
- Average crew
- about 85 workers (model value: the crew that would need exactly this long, working without a break)
Volume basis: about 0.8 km circuit; keep 29 m across with 5 m walls; basalt. Checked against measurements. Our estimates come from published dimensions and are shown as a range. The result is a simple model, not a measured fact.
Where the stone came from
Mostly black basalt, with limestone for decoration. One source says the stone was cut from the rock where the castle's cisterns were dug. Wikipedia: Margat, Rome Art Lover: Marqab Secondary, provisional
Legend: tradition, not evidence
A tunnel is said to have linked Margat to the Boy's Tower, a watchtower down the hill, to supply the castle during an attack.
What we know: The Boy's Tower was a three-story basalt keep guarding the coastal road. A document from 1233 mentions a toll gate near it. We found no evidence of a tunnel.
Castles.nl: Margat Castle, Castles.nl: Boy's Tower Tradition, not evidence
Build it yourself
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