T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 146

Safad is much more interesting. The castle hill (48) is reasonably well covered with soil, and in consequence the ditches around the castle present a more European form. Earth- quakes, and the expansion of the Jewish quarter between them - account for the disappearance of every stone in the building : fortunately a huge vaulted store-pit beneath the inner ward remains to prove the date of the place. The entrance along the earthworks is very interesting : probably it crossed the moat by some sort of bridge resting on a tower that capped the mound E. There were evidently other towers (rectangular) restored conjecturally in red, along the top of the mounds. If complete Safed would have been one of the most valuable fortresses in Syria. It belonged to the Templars. (1) Professor Oman quotes from William of Tyre the descrip- tion of Darum in the southern coasts of Palestine, built by Amaury about 1160 on a purely Byzantine plan, like the outworks of Giblet. There is now nothing whatever left of it : "sed absque vallo erat et sine antemurali," and its weakness is sufficiently shown by Richard's storm of in in four days in 1192. Rey attempts to associate with it Blanche-Garde and Ibelin, but excavations at Blanche-Garde some years ago proved (2) his plan wholly imaginary. ----------------------------------------------------------- (1) XX. 19. (2) On page 124 of his "Architecture Militaire des Croisees"