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Telegraph Jordan is home to dramatic Crusader castles, we look at three of the best; Ajloun, Karak and Shoback castles. 
At the crossroads of the Middle East, poised between Europe, Arabia, Africa and Asia, Jordan has seen countless armies come and go. Some have vanished without trace, others have left their mark in the form of Jordan' s hundreds of archaeological sites and ancient buildings. The most dramatic of these are the many castles dotted around the country including these three classic examples from the medieval Crusader period. AJLOUN CASTLE Located roughly fifty miles north of Amman, the hilltop castle at Ajloun was built in 1184 by the local Arab opposition to the Crusaders under Azz ad-Din Usama, a close relative of Saladin himself. Designed to limit expansion of the Crusader kingdoms, it also took its place in a chain of beacons which could transmit news by pigeon post from the Euphrates to Cairo in only twelve hours. Destroyed by the invading Mongols in 1260, and rebuilt shortly afterwards by Sultan Baybars, Ajloun is unique for never having fallen under Crusader control. Today, as you cross the moat to a gateway in the east wall, Ajloun retains a sense of impregnability. Scramble your way through the chambers and galleries, many still sporting stone-worked carvings, up to the towers at the highest point of the ruins for spectacular views over a rolling Mediterranean landscape of olive groves and orchards. KARAK CASTLE Roughly midway between Amman and Petra, the hilltop town of Karak remains largely within its Crusader-built walls. At the highest point of the hill, on a rocky spur granting uniquely privileged views not only north and south but also east into the deserts and west through a gap in the mountain chain down to the Dead Sea, Karak Castle served as the base for one of the Crusaders' most notorious characters. Reynald of Chatillon arrived in the Holy Land in 1147, quickly gaining a reputation for truce-breaking and wanton cruelty: one of his favourite pleasures involved flinging prisoners off the high walls of Karak' s castle onto rocks below. Besieged several times during the 1170s and 1180s, Karak eventually capitulated to the Arab armies, whose leader, Saladin, characteristically spared everyone bar Reynald, whom he personally decapitated. Karak remains full of atmosphere, even on a distant approach, its jagged battlements and mighty glacis slope looming above a ravine. Inside, there are seven levels to explore, from long, vaulted passageways to the castle kitchens complete with olive press and ovens and a semi-ruined chapel. Make time for the dungeons, and the fascinating museum on a lower level, but then also climb to the keep, the strongest part of the fortress, towering dramatically above the countryside. SHOBAK CASTLE Although Karak grabs the headlines, Shobak Castle, a short way further south, was in fact the Crusaders' headquarters in Jordan, and the first castle they built in the region. Known then as Montreal or the Royal Mountain Shobak dominates the folded, semi-arid hills on the approaches to Petra. The legacy of widescale rebuilding work in the 1290s, under Mamluke control, is everywhere, most notably in the carved stone panels adorning the external walls and towers, which feature strikingly beautiful Arabic callligraphy. Roam the ruins to discover the original Crusader chapel, a palace complex and even a set of secret passages, one of which heads down a flight of steep and crumbling steps into blackness, eventually emerging through a small gateway at the base of the castle hill.
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