Atlit

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Château des Pèlerins (Castle of the Pilgrims); the name Atlit dates from a later period.

After the unsuccessful attack on Damietta in the Nile delta (1249) the French king Louis IX stayed for some time in Acre (Akko) and Atlit. Atlit was attacked by the Arabs for the first time in 1265. The outlying districts were destroyed and the Templars were required to pay tribute to the Arabs, though they were allowed to retain possession of the castle. In 1291, however, Sultan Melik el-Ashraf stormed Acre, capital of the Christian kingdom. This was the end of the Crusader state, though a few strongholds still held out for a short time, among them Tortosa (Tartus in Syria) and Atlit. After the fall of Tortosa on August third 1291 the Templars decided to return to France, and in the middle of August they evacuated the Castle of the Pilgrims.

In later centuries the castle fell into decay, though considerable remains were left even after an earthquake in 1837. In 1898, when the German Emperor William II called in at Atlit on his way from Haifa to Jerusalem, the only inhabitants were two Arab families. The land round Atlit was owned by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who initiated the development of the area. In 1903 he founded the Arab village of Atlit 1km/0.75mi south of the castle, and in 1911 Aaron Aaronsohn established an experimental agricultural station in an area of marshland, where salt was produced by the evaporation of sea-water. (Most of the salt consumed in Israel now comes from here.) Since 1948 many immigrants have settled in Atlit. During the Second World War the British authorities used the ruins of Atlit as a camp for German and Italian prisoners of war, and after the war for illegal Jewish immigrants. In 1956 and 1967 Egyptian prisoners were confined here.

The Crusader castle occupies a rectangular area measuring 200m/220yds by 450m/490yds on a rocky peninsula projecting westward into the sea. The entrance is at the east end. In front of it was an outlying settlement, partly excavated before 1938. The castle itself is defended by a ditch (cut through a Phoenician cemetery) and by a stout double wall. On the inner wall is the principal tower or keep, El-Karnifeh, built of massive square blocks with quoins of dressed stone. Adjoining this tower is the chapterhouse, which is preserved to the springing of the vaulting, borne on consoles with saints' heads. At the west end of the castle, where steps run down to the landing-stage, can be seen the foundations of the octagonal Templar church. Like other Templar churches, it was a small-scale copy of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Unusually, the altar stood not in an apse but in the center of the church.