Al-Barak Castle site
Palestine includes many historical and archaeological sites and monuments, and the Al-Barak Castle located in the city of Bethlehem is one of the most prominent of these monuments, which are linked to a unique water irrigation system, known as the Al-Marjaa Castle and about four kilometers from the city center of Bethlehem in the southern region of it, And specifically on the road that connects the governorates of Bethlehem and Hebron.
The castle was built at that time near a group of ponds that formed a water system and was made up of three main pools, and the castle comes to the north of the largest pool or the upper pool, and was built during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Othman bin Ahmed in the year 1617 AD It contains huge water sources, in addition to the purpose of protecting the caravans of pilgrims, who were passing by them during those periods, and since their construction and they are protecting the water from springs and canals, and others.
Installing the castle
Al-Barak Castle is built in a rectangular shape, with a length of approximately seventy meters extending from the southern region to the north, while its width extending from the east to the west is forty-five meters, and it has only one entrance located in the middle of its western wall, at the top of a written stone inscription above The construction corners include each tower, which is a square tower consisting of two floors, its upper parts include slots of arrows, and the lower parts have a stairway that reaches the part or the upper floor of it, and this castle includes fifty small rooms built in the east-west side of the The castle, which was specifically constructed For military purposes where the soldiers used to place their belongings and equipment and the supplies they needed, while the south-western side of the castle includes a mosque, and he mentioned in many historical accounts that the castle included another mosque, but it is not covered, specifically in the south-western side of the castle near the named tower In the model, and on the south side there is a spring of water known as Ain Al-Qalaa.
The touristic importance of the castle
Al-Barak Castle and its various monuments, and the surrounding archaeological areas in addition to the pools themselves are an important tourist landmark in Palestine, so that large numbers of internal and external tourists come to visit them, knowing that there is a church or monastery near it known as the Girls ’Monastery, which makes it a tourist destination for purposes Religious, for a large number of Christian tourists.