Kázmér and Major (2015) examined archaeoseismic effects on the donjon of Chastel Blanc. The donjon was built from whitish Cretaceaous limestone and is located on the highest poit of the town of Safita. It stands on compact Cretaceaous limestone beds (Kázmér and Major, 2015). Kázmér and Major (2015:182 ) report that the central part of the castle is comprised of the enormous rectangular donjon and the scanty remains of an inner enclosure which is encircled by a huge outer enclosure with flanking towers and the remains of a great hall on two levels. Kázmér and Major (2015:186) noted that the donjon stands on solid Cretaceous limestone beds, i.e. site amplification by soft subsoil can be excluded.

Kázmér and Major (2015) additionally examined archaeoseismic evidence of rockfalls and fallen architecture at the nearby villages of Khirbat al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb.

• from Kázmér and Major (2015:182-184)

Safıta [aka Chastel Blanc] boasts with the highest surviving donjon of the Holy Land. Making its first appearance in the written sources of the 12th century, nothing is known about its early history. However, the first certain mention of the site was in 1112, when the area of the Gap of Homs, conquered by the Crusaders around 1109, was handed over by Tancred, lord of Antioch, to Pons, the count of Tripoli (Ibn al-Qalanisı, Dzayl, 163; trans. 89). We do not have any certain data on the origins of the fortifications in Safıta, but whatever survived above ground clearly dates from the Crusader period on stylistic bases. The castle was one of the earliest possessions of the Order of the Temple in the Syrian coast, who might have acquired it as early as 1152, but in any case, it was certainly in Templar possession by 1155 (Piana, 2008: 295). Lying on the strategic route between the coast and the Syrian interior, the site had a rather troubled history under Crusader domination. In H. 562 (1166/67), it was sacked by the army of Sultan Nur al-Dın (Ibn al-Athır, al-Kamil, IX/330) and was captured and destroyed by the same ruler again in H. 567 (1171/72)(Ibn al-Athır, al-Ta’rıkh al-Bahir, 154) (Raphael, 2010). The great northern campaign of Sultan Saladin in 1188 and his brief raids against Safıta are unlikely to have had much effect on the fortress (Ibn al-Athır, al-Kamil, X/48), but it withstood a serious assault in 1218, when the army of al-Malik al-Ashraf took and destroyed its suburb (Ibn Wasil, Mufarrij, III/265). According to a Latin source some of its defensive towers were also damaged (Oliver Scholasticus, Historia Damiatina, xxxvi, 235). Safıta was finally taken by the army of Sultan Baybars on 20 February 1271 after a brief siege (Ibn al-Furat, Ta’rıkh, 180–182; trans. 143–144).

The donjon is not only marked by its huge size, but also by enormous cracks on its facades, which later reconstructions were unable to conceal. In all probability, this was the 'turris maior' [great tower] mentioned in the letter of the Master of the Temple, Philippe de Plessis, describing the effects the AD 1202 earthquake had on Safıta (Castrum Album) with the following words:

English

At Chastel Blanc [Safıta], most of the walls collapsed, and the main tower, which we thought to have been built with outstanding strength and solidity, was so badly cracked and damaged that it would have been better for us if it had completely collapsed instead of being left standing in such a state. (translation from Guidoboni and Comastri, 2005, p. 224)

Latin

Castri autem Albi maxima pars murorum cecidit, turris autem maior, qua nullam credimus fortuis vel firmius edificatam, in hoc rimis et quassaturis debilitata est, quod melius nobis esset, si funditus corueret, quam ita stans permaneret (Mayer, 1972, p. 309).

The reparation of the effects of the grave destruction is still visible today; at the same time, it shows that the medieval architects working for the Templars did find a solution to the problem of the great tower. In any case it was described by Wilbrand of Oldenbourg in 1212 as ... quid est bonum et forte [which is good and strong] (Wilbrand of Oldenbourg, Itinerarium Terrae Sanctae, 210). As the visible reparations of the earthquake damage have been executed in a Crusader style (including the gothic hall and a window for a church bell) and there is no serious earthquake mentioned in the years until 1271, it is logical to assume that this earthquake trace was caused by the great earthquake of 1202.

Following the Muslim occupation in 1271, the donjon lost its strategic importance and fell into disuse as a military installation.

Photographs preserved in the Deschamps archives (Deschamps, 1973) (folders XVI and XXI) of the Bibliotheque nationale (Paris) show missing blocks of masonry at random places of the four main walls and around the top floor. Most of these damages cannot be seen today due to the restoration of 1936, during the French Mandate. Perfect fit of masonry at the sites of strike-slip displacement (Fig. 2b, d) shows professional restoration by expert stonemasons. While missing and broken blocks were obviously replaced, there was no attempt to conceal the large-scale shift perpendicular to the plane of the wall. Lower-quality restoration of missing mortar between blocks in arches indicates a subsequent, hastily performed restoration, possibly by local builders (Fig. 2d, f).

• from Kázmér and Major (2015:185)

Field surveys of the Syro-Hungarian Archaeological Mission in the past years detected a large number of village sites of Romano-Byzantine origin in the deepest recesses of the coastal mountain ranges (Major, 2006, pp. 44–46). The observations of field surveying and sherding make it clear that these settlements were established in the Roman and Byzantine periods, perhaps not much later than the 4th century and the presence of characteristic 13th century pottery found on a much smaller area than the Roman period pottery scatter extension indicates that many of them must have survived the early Middle Ages, but on a reduced scale. The cluster of ‘rural villas’ identified in ‘Ayn-Qadıb makes it a good example of an average middle-sized settlement. Khirbat al-Qurshiyya belonged to the large villages with widely dispersed villas on an extensive area, possessing several olive and wine presses and also having a clearly identifiable church building. Medieval pottery scatter is concentrated only in a limited zone of the site, not surprisingly close to the main water source.

Quarrying left markedly visible traces in Khirbat al-Qurshiyya. Blocks several metres long and wide, and tens of tons in weight, were cut from the horizontally bedded, compact Cretaceous limestone. This stone is suitable for monumental architecture, and the village was certainly a well-to-do community.

• Fig. 1 - Location Map from
  Figure 1
  
  Location of studied sites in coastal Syria. Major historical earthquakes are centred along left-lateral strike-slip faults ranging from the Dead Sea Fault in the south to the East Anatolian Fault in the north (after Sbeinati et al., 2005, modified). The epicentre of the 1202 earthquake is underlined. The epicentres of the events of 1212, 1222, and 1303 are out of the map in Jordan, Cyprus, and Crete, respectively.
  
  

  • Q1: Khirbat al-Qurshiya
  • Q2: ‘Ayn-Qadı¯b
  • DSF: Dead Sea Fault system
  • YF: Yammouneh Fault
  • EAF: East Anatolian Fault system
  • EFS: Euphrates Fault system

  
  
  Epicentre locations are from Ambraseys (2009, electronic supplement).
  
  Kázmér and Major (2015)
  Kázmér and Major (2015)
• Fig. 6 Map of direction of
  Figure 6
  
  Direction of deformation and displacement. Segments of the Levant Fault system after Meghraoui et al. (2003) and Daeron et al. (2007). Paired arrows indicate strong motion directions: north–south deformation in Safıta, and northwards displacement al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb. Safıta is 19 km from the Levant Fault. Khirbat al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb are both less than 6 km from the Missyaf segment. Al-Marqab citadel bears damages oriented towards 240˚ caused by the AD 1202 earthquake and towards 130˚ caused by an earthquake after 1275 (Kazmer and Major, 2010).
  
  

  • B: Beirut
  • D: Damascus
  • L: Lattakia
  • T: Tartus

  
  
  Kázmér and Major (2015)
  deformation and displacement from Kázmér and Major (2015)
• Fig. 3 Plan of the donjon
  Figure 3
  
  Deformation of the donjon. There are four strike-slip shear zones dissecting the donjon across both the western and eastern window bays of the knights’ hall. Heavy red lines: Kazmer and Major (2014): Safita castle 35 illustrate that the central portion of the northern wall moved about 20 cm to the north, while the central portion of the southern wall moved ca. 30 cm to the south. The resulting deformation is a north–south extension of the upper floor of the donjon. Scale in metres. Arrows refer to the photos in Fig. 2.
  
  Kázmér and Major (2015)
  with locations of photos and indicated deformation from Kázmér and Major (2015)
• Fig. 2a Photo of the donjon
  Figure 2a
  
  view from west. Note the window-less walls. The only entrance to the tower is a small door on the western wall
  
  Kázmér and Major (2015)
  from Kázmér and Major (2015)
• Chastel Blanc in Google Earth
  Chastel Blanc
  
  click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth
• Ayn Qadib in Google Earth
  Ayn Qadib
  
  click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth
• Khirbat al-Qurshiya vicinity in Google Earth
  Khirbat al-Qurshiya vicinity
  
  click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth

Kázmér and Major (2015:187) assigned the major damage of the donjon to the 1202 CE earthquakes based on indirect reasoning

• arguments related to the history of art place the construction of the donjon into the 12th century (early Gothic architecture)
• there was a great tower standing in 1202, which has been seriously damaged by the earthquake of the same year, as the letter of the Phillipe de Plessis reported (Mayer, 1972, p. 309)¹
• the tower was in good and strong condition in 1212 (Wilbrand of Oldenbourg, Itinerarium Terrae Sanctae, 210). This means two things: either the letter written and sent immediately after the earthquake by Phillipe de Plessis overestimated the damages, or these damages have been successfully restored by 1212
• there are Crusader-style repairs and modifications of the Gothic hall and installation of a window for the church bell
• there was no major earthquake reported until 1271, when the Muslim forces occupied Safıta. After the fortress changed hands, it lost its strategic importance. Probably no major repairs occurred until the 20th century
• no matter how scanty the written reports seem to be individually, together they allow us to suggest that the major damage to the Safita donjon occurred during the 1202 earthquake

The fallen architecture is dated to between late Roman times and the 13th century CE and the Rockfalls are dated to sometime in the last millennium however Kázmér and Major (2015) note a real possibility that they all fell in the 13th century CE. Details follow below.

Effect	Location	Photo(s)	Comments
Extruded Walls - Displaced Walls	Fig.s 2a and 2b - crusader donjon of Safita/Chastel Blanc Figure 3 Deformation of the donjon. There are four strike-slip shear zones dissecting the donjon across both the western and eastern window bays of the knights’ hall. Heavy red lines: Kazmer and Major (2014): Safita castle 35 illustrate that the central portion of the northern wall moved about 20 cm to the north, while the central portion of the southern wall moved ca. 30 cm to the south. The resulting deformation is a north–south extension of the upper floor of the donjon. Scale in metres. Arrows refer to the photos in Fig. 2. Kázmér and Major (2015)	Fig. 2b Figure 2b detail of the southern facade. Right-lateral displacement of ashlars near the top of the donjon diminishes downwards Kázmér and Major (2015) Fig. 2c Figure 2c the ground floor hall is a church, now in use by the local Maronite Christian community. Note the shifted ashlars seen above the illuminated cross in the axis of the hemispherical dome of the apse Kázmér and Major (2015)	The east–west-oriented elongated rectangle of the donjon bore major damages on all four sides. Many of them have been restored since the 1930s, when the Arme´e du Levant of the French Mandate forces made most important documentary photographs of the building. However, there are four major dislocation features remaining, arranged symmetrically on the northern and southern facades. Both the northern and the southern facades are symmetrically crosscut — in an approximately vertical direction — by two fractures each, extending from the top downwards through the upper two-thirds of the building (Fig. 2b). The displacement along the fractures is increasing upward. The fractures crosscut the 2.5-m-thick walls, displaying the shifted portions both outside and inside. The amount and sense of displacement along each fracture is identical both on the external and internal surfaces (Fig. 2d). Conspicuously, fractures displacing the northern and the southern walls are of opposite senses (Fig. 3). The net result is that the central portion of the donjon, bounded by the two pairs of fracture zones, is at least 0.5 m wider—in a north–south direction—than the eastern and western portions (Fig. 3). This feature is analogous to the folded (and collapsed) walls, as described by RodrıguezPascua et al. (2011). - Kázmér and Major (2015) Extremely thick, 2.5-m wall, broken and displaced - Kázmér and Major (2015)
Displaced Wall	northern facade of the crusader donjon of Safita/Chastel Blanc Figure 3 Deformation of the donjon. There are four strike-slip shear zones dissecting the donjon across both the western and eastern window bays of the knights’ hall. Heavy red lines: Kazmer and Major (2014): Safita castle 35 illustrate that the central portion of the northern wall moved about 20 cm to the north, while the central portion of the southern wall moved ca. 30 cm to the south. The resulting deformation is a north–south extension of the upper floor of the donjon. Scale in metres. Arrows refer to the photos in Fig. 2. Kázmér and Major (2015)		Extremely thick, 2.5-m wall, broken and displaced - Kázmér and Major (2015)
Dropped keystones	Fig.s 2e and 2f - crusader donjon of Safita/Chastel Blanc Figure 3 Deformation of the donjon. There are four strike-slip shear zones dissecting the donjon across both the western and eastern window bays of the knights’ hall. Heavy red lines: Kazmer and Major (2014): Safita castle 35 illustrate that the central portion of the northern wall moved about 20 cm to the north, while the central portion of the southern wall moved ca. 30 cm to the south. The resulting deformation is a north–south extension of the upper floor of the donjon. Scale in metres. Arrows refer to the photos in Fig. 2. Kázmér and Major (2015)	Fig. 2e Figure 2e : the first floor hall (above the ground floor church) was probably the common dormitory of the Knights Hospitaller [JW: I think he meant Knights Templar]. Two central pillars bear Gothic arches hold the weight of the roof. Heavy repairs in the vault of the right-side aisle are witnesses to shifted and/or broken ashlars there Kázmér and Major (2015) Fig. 2f Figure 2f dropped keystone in a north–south oriented Gothic arch of the first floor hall Kázmér and Major (2015)	The highest points of the arches separating the groin vaults in the upper floor hall are invariably badly damaged (Fig. 2e). Keystones and adjacent ashlars have been broken and/or subsided by several centimetres (Fig. 2f). Finite-element modelling proved that only major earthquakes are capable of producing downward sliding of keystones (Kamai and Hatzor, 2008). - Kázmér and Major (2015)
Shifted blocks	random locations in the crusader donjon of Safita/Chastel Blanc Figure 3 Deformation of the donjon. There are four strike-slip shear zones dissecting the donjon across both the western and eastern window bays of the knights’ hall. Heavy red lines: Kazmer and Major (2014): Safita castle 35 illustrate that the central portion of the northern wall moved about 20 cm to the north, while the central portion of the southern wall moved ca. 30 cm to the south. The resulting deformation is a north–south extension of the upper floor of the donjon. Scale in metres. Arrows refer to the photos in Fig. 2. Kázmér and Major (2015)		There are wide gaps, up to a few centimetres, between blocks, distributed seemingly at random. These are the ‘displaced masonry blocks’ of Rodrıguez-Pascua et al. (2011). - Kázmér and Major (2015)
Left-lateral displacement of the northern wall	Fig. 2d - crusader donjon of Safita/Chastel Blanc Figure 3 Deformation of the donjon. There are four strike-slip shear zones dissecting the donjon across both the western and eastern window bays of the knights’ hall. Heavy red lines: Kazmer and Major (2014): Safita castle 35 illustrate that the central portion of the northern wall moved about 20 cm to the north, while the central portion of the southern wall moved ca. 30 cm to the south. The resulting deformation is a north–south extension of the upper floor of the donjon. Scale in metres. Arrows refer to the photos in Fig. 2. Kázmér and Major (2015)	Fig. 2d Figure 2d first floor: left-lateral displacement of the northern wall Kázmér and Major (2015)
Rotated masonry blocks in walls	western facade of the crusader donjon of Safita/Chastel Blanc Figure 3 Deformation of the donjon. There are four strike-slip shear zones dissecting the donjon across both the western and eastern window bays of the knights’ hall. Heavy red lines: Kazmer and Major (2014): Safita castle 35 illustrate that the central portion of the northern wall moved about 20 cm to the north, while the central portion of the southern wall moved ca. 30 cm to the south. The resulting deformation is a north–south extension of the upper floor of the donjon. Scale in metres. Arrows refer to the photos in Fig. 2. Kázmér and Major (2015)
Rockfall	Ayn Qadib Figure 6 Direction of deformation and displacement. Segments of the Levant Fault system after Meghraoui et al. (2003) and Daeron et al. (2007). Paired arrows indicate strong motion directions: north–south deformation in Safıta, and northwards displacement al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb. Safıta is 19 km from the Levant Fault. Khirbat al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb are both less than 6 km from the Missyaf segment. Al-Marqab citadel bears damages oriented towards 240˚ caused by the AD 1202 earthquake and towards 130˚ caused by an earthquake after 1275 (Kazmer and Major, 2010). B: Beirut D: Damascus L: Lattakia T: Tartus Kázmér and Major (2015) Ayn Qadib click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth	Figure 5 Rockfall in ‘Ayn-Qadıb village destroyed a masonry house. The largest block (2.6 m thick, ~50 t) fell to 10°N and overturned Kázmér and Major (2015)	Rockfall in ‘Ayn-Qadıb village destroyed a masonry house. The largest block (2.6 m thick, ~50 t) fell to 10°N and overturned - Kázmér and Major (2015) Assignment to 1202 CE earthquakes is speculative. These falls, dated to sometime in the last millennium, are thought by Kázmér and Major (2015) to have fallen in the 13th century CE
Rockfall	Khirbet Al-Qurshiya Figure 4d sketch of displaced objects: approximately north–south lying fallen columns in the village. Twenty-ton blocks — some overturned — in the quarry, displaced to the north. Blocks slid downhill on the eastern slope. Kázmér and Major (2015)	Figure 4a fallen >20 t block in front of the quarry face. Bedding thickness: ca. 1.4 m. Rubble walls are shepherds’ shelters Kázmér and Major (2015)	fallen >20 t block in front of the quarry face. Bedding thickness: ca. 1.4 m. - Kázmér and Major (2015) Assignment to 1202 CE earthquakes is speculative. These falls, dated to sometime in the last millennium, are thought by Kázmér and Major (2015) to have fallen in the 13th century CE
Fallen and oriented columns	Khirbet Al-Qurshiya Figure 4d sketch of displaced objects: approximately north–south lying fallen columns in the village. Twenty-ton blocks — some overturned — in the quarry, displaced to the north. Blocks slid downhill on the eastern slope. Kázmér and Major (2015)	Figure 4c two fallen columns of the village temple lying approximately in a north–south direction (north is towards the viewer) Kázmér and Major (2015)	two fallen columns of the village temple lying approximately in a north–south direction - Kázmér and Major (2015) Assignment to 1202 CE earthquakes is speculative. This fallen architecture, dated to between between late Roman times and the 13th century CE,is thought by Kázmér and Major (2015) to have fallen in the 13th century CE

• Modified by JW from Fig. 3 from Kázmér and Major (2015)

• Slightly modified by JW from Fig. 4d from Kázmér and Major (2015)

Boas, A. J. (2016). Crusader Archaeology: The Material Culture of the Latin East, Taylor & Francis.

Kázmér, M. and B. Major (2015). "Sāfitā castle and rockfalls in the ‘dead villages’ of coastal Syria – an archaeoseismological study." Comptes Rendus Geoscience 347(4): 181-190.

Kazmer, M. (2016). "Sāfītā vára és kőomlások Szíria partvidékén – archeoszeizmológiai tanulmány."

Kazmer, M., 2014. Damages to ancient buildings from earthquakes. In: Beer, M., Patelli, E., Kouigioumtzoglou, I., Au, I.S.-K. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering. Springer, Berlin

Kennedy, H. (2001). Crusader Castles, Cambridge University Press. online - open access with an account at archive.org

Major, B., 2006. Survey of Late Antique and Medieval Rural Sites in the Region of Safıta on the Syrian Coast. In: Council for the British Research in the Levant Bulletin. Vol. 1. pp. 44–46.

Kázmér and Major (2015:184) provided the following information about construction techniques

The donjon of Safita was built of stone masonry and opus caementitium, i.e., Roman concrete (Lamprecht, 2001). The four main walls were built of a single layer of well dressed, rectangular stones of standard size, both on the external and the internal surfaces. No metal anchors have been used to connect the ashlars. These walls served as moulds for casting the core of the wall, several metres thick, made of layers of rubble and mortar (Ferretti and Bazant, 2006; Mistler et al., 2006). It is very similar to modern concrete in appearance and resistance to weathering and stresses. Masonry both served aesthetic demands and provided a hard, protective layer to counter weather effects and enemy attacks. This layer often served as framework during concrete pouring only, having no supporting function when concrete hardened.

Kázmér and Major (2015:185-186) provided the following information about Damage Mechanisms

Safita donjon, having walls up to 4 m thick, is a robust structure. Its height/thickness ratio is h/t = 4 for the lower level and h/t = 5 for the upper level, indicating an extremely strong and earthquake-resistant construction (Lourenco et al., 2007). Several masonry blocks suffered minor displacements in each donjon wall; these belong to the earthquake archaeological effects listed by Rodrıguez-Pascua et al. (2011). The dropped keystones in the arches are probably the best evidence of earthquake damage (Kamai and Hatzor, 2008; Marco, 2008).

The gently folded walls on the northern and southern sides of the donjon bend outwards: the 20–30-cm displacement at the top disappears downwards. Recorded by, e.g., Rodrıguez-Pascua et al. (2011, their fig. 6c) and by Kazmer (2014, his fig. 2b), this feature is produced by a tall building swinging under seismic vibration.

We noted that the donjon stands on solid Cretaceous limestone beds, i.e. site amplification by soft subsoil can be excluded.

Kázmér and Major (2015:199-189) discussed the causitive fault as follows:

The three locations discussed here have a common element of seismic destruction: an approximately north– south direction of shaking (error ±20° at least).

Safıta is less than 20 km from the Dead Sea Fault. Al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb are a mere 5 km away from the Missyaf segment of the same fault. The Yammouneh segment of the Dead Sea Fault, the causative segment for the 1202 earthquake, is only 50 km to the south.

Meghraoui et al. (2003) identified the segments of the Dead Sea Fault. The closest one, the Missyaf segment fractured the last time in AD 1170, i.e. before the construction of the donjon as we see it today in Safıta. The Yammouneh segment faulted in AD 1759 for the last time. It was also responsible for the 1202 earthquake, the largest one in the Near East in historical times (Ambraseys and Melville, 1988; Daeron et al., 2005).

[JW: Daeron et al (2007) present evidence suggesting that the Serghaya, and Râchaïya segments faulted in 1759 CE and the Yammouneh segment faulted in 1202 CE]

Historical data suggest that the AD 1202 earthquake caused the crosscutting damage of Safıta donjon as we see it today. This event is known to have had its epicentre along the Yammouneh fault (Daeron et al., 2007), ca. 50 km south of Safita, not by the Missyaf segment of the Dead Sea Fault, a mere 5 km to the east. The latter slipped in AD 1170. Both seismic events had a similar magnitude, 7.5 (Meghraoui et al., 2003).

Source	Location	Photo(s)	Comments
Kázmér and Major (2015)	Al-Marqab Citadel ‘Ayn-Qadıb Al-Qurshiyya Chastel Blanc (Safita)	Figure 6 Figure 6 Direction of deformation and displacement. Segments of the Levant Fault system after Meghraoui et al. (2003) and Daeron et al. (2007). Paired arrows indicate strong motion directions: north–south deformation in Safıta, and northwards displacement al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb. Safıta is 19 km from the Levant Fault. Khirbat al-Qurshiyya and ‘Ayn-Qadıb are both less than 6 km from the Missyaf segment. Al-Marqab citadel bears damages oriented towards 240˚ caused by the AD 1202 earthquake and towards 130˚ caused by an earthquake after 1275 (Kazmer and Major, 2010). B: Beirut D: Damascus L: Lattakia T: Tartus Kázmér and Major (2015)	Map - Direction of deformation and displacement

Photos reproduced with permission from Miklos Kazmer (email, 7/17/2022)

• from Wikipedia