Arabic and Syriac authors — including Michael the Syrian (late 12th c. CE, Mor Hananyo/Saffron Monastery), Ibn al-Athir (c. 1200–1231 CE, Mosul), Kemal ad-Din (before 1260 CE, Aleppo or Cairo), and Bar Hebraeus (13th c. CE, possibly Maraghah) — reported destruction, in some cases total destruction, of Apamea in the August–September 1157 CE Hama and Shaizar Quake(s), part of the 1156–1159 CE Syrian Quakes. Ibn al-Jawzi (2nd half 12th c. CE, Baghdad) and Ibn Tagri Birdi (15th c. CE, Cairo) also noted that the citadel of Apamea collapsed during the same event.

Jean-Charles Balty (1930–2019), a Belgian archaeologist and historian, who directed and published extensively on excavations at Apamea attributes the ultimate demise of Apamea to this earthquake, stating that “the severe earthquake of 1157 struck Apamea off the map.” (Jean Ch. Balty in Meyers et al., 1997). Balty also observed that Apamea “does not appear as one of the cities destroyed” in the 1170 CE Quake(s). This is not entirely accurate: the 15th-century historian as-Suyuti, writing in Cairo, reported that the 1170 CE Quake(s) “destroyed many walls and houses in Syria, more particularly at Damascus, Emessa, Apamea, Aleppo, and Baalbek.” Yet none of the roughly twenty earlier authors mention damage at Apamea during the 1170 CE Quake(s).