Qula
A defense tower still standing here was built by Crusader knights, out of stones taken from something older still.
In the twelfth century, the Hospitaller knights set up an administrative and tax collection centre on this rocky hill. They built a tower and a vaulted structure. The name of the place goes back further than that. Qula comes from Aramaic, and it first appears in Crusader documents as Chola, or Cola. A French explorer named Victor Guérin climbed up here in 1870 and worked out that the builders had been recycling. The large building on the hill, by then split into private homes, was made of cut stones removed from older buildings. The lower courses of the tower used much larger blocks than the upper part, which was clearly newer. Even the small mosque was half built from ancient material. Guérin looked at the moldings by its door and thought they predated Islam entirely. Near the village he found a pond, eighteen paces by twelve, partly cut into the bedrock and partly built of huge polygonal blocks sealed with thick cement. He decided that one was not Arab work either.
This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
During the twelfth century the Hospitallers established an administrative and collection centre in the village, comprising a tower and a vaulted structure.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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