T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 134

grubbing them up to provide site and building material for his own residence. Below these yet further there is a ring wall of polygonal shape with a very pronounced talus com- pletely encircling the hill. (Plan 37) This might conceivably be Byzantine work, but some little carelessness in the construction allies it rather with the pseudo-Byzantine style adopted by the Templars in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Sarita was one of the chief fiefs of Tripoli, and as such probably existed in Byzantine times, so that it is not impossible that the wall is earlier than the coming of the Crusaders. At any rate it is perfectly evident, from the difference in technique that the builders of the keep had no hand in its construction. If it existed already, they took advantage of it : if not, they must have had some- thing in its place. There would have been time between 1140 (supposing this to be the date of the keep) and 1220 for such an outer defence to have fallen into disrepair, or even to have become inadequate, for in Syria, with the constant fight- ing, development in military architecture came quickly. At Giblet (Gebal, Byblos, Jebeil ليبج) the square keep of exceptionally heavy masonry presents one or two features of late date. The gateway has a portcullis, and the parapet is two-storied, and of exceptional height, exactly like the inner curtain wall of a Byzantine fortress. Otherwise there is little to distinguish the keep from the others of its class,