Arqa

Ruins of the fortress, 2008

Arqa (actually Irqata, Arkite in the Bible in Arabic: ' Arqa ( عرقا ) or the' IRQA ) is a place to Miniara in the district of Akkar in northern Lebanon near the coast and 22 kilometers north-east of Tripoli.

History

Arqa is known because of the Tell ' Arqa, an archaeological site, which dates back to the Neolithic period.

Irqata was already mentioned in the Egyptian Amarna letters to Pharaoh Akhenaten around 1350 BC, and in Assyrian documents (EA 100). The Roman city of Caesarea was called in Lebanon or Arca Caesarea; the emperor Severus Alexander was born here.

In the Middle Ages, fortified settlement Arqa was an important fortress, which allowed control of the road from Tartus to Tripoli. At that time the fort was under the Qadi of Tripoli, Fakhr al- Mulk, of the dynasty of the Banū Ammar. Arqa 1099 was unsuccessfully besieged by the army of the First Crusade, before it moved on to Jerusalem. After Tripoli had in 1108 assumed in the absence of Fakhr al- Mulk under the pressure of the siege by the crusaders of the supremacy of the Egyptian Fatimids to Arqa closed under the leadership of a loyal pages Fakhrs in the kingdom of Atabegs Tugtakin of Damascus. The Atabeg then traveled in person with an army to Arqa to take care of his new possession in appearances, but was slowed by the winter rains in the mountains of Lebanon, fell into an ambush the Crusaders under William -Jordan of Cerdanya and had to flee to Homs. Following this victory Arqa revealed in March / April 1109 after three weeks of siege Wilhelm Jordan, who added the fortress of the County of Tripoli. The Crusaders called the fortress Archas. While Count Raymond III. Tripoli was in captivity, the fortress was unsuccessfully besieged in 1167 by Nur ad -Din. A little later the fortress of King Amalric I of Jerusalem, who took over the regency in Tripoli, was entrusted to the Hospitallers. 1171 held the fortress of a siege by the Atabeg of Mosul was. The fort was eventually conquered by the Mamluks in 1266 by Sultan Baybars I. below.