Smar Jbeil - Castle, Lebanon

The Castle was built in the center of the village, on a hill showing the entire neighborhood. Most of the historians recognize that the castle was built by the Phoenicians, and was under the Persian Empire control in 555 B.C. It passed to the hands of Alexander of Macedon's in 331 B.C. In the Middle Ages, the Maronites and their army the Maradaites took the castle as a refuge and it was the See of the First Maronite Catholic Patriarch Saint John Maron before he moved to Kfarhay. The Mardaites counterattacked their enemies from Smar Jbeil and they won the battle in Amyoun (30 km north) while defending their Patriarch. The Castle had a main tower showing the entire Mediterranean coast from Jounieh to Tripoli. In his book Tarikh Al Azminah, the Patriarch Estephan El Douaihy (1670–1704) explains how the main castle tower was demolished: Sunday, November 25th 1630, at 3:00AM a huge earthquake hit the castle and demolished the center tower from its four corners. Source: liquisearch.com **info@libanciel.com**