Fortress of Ma’an

Also known as the “Grand Serail Ottoman House”, this fortress took on importance when Syrian pilgrimage caravans started using it as a rest station where they could also lay in supplies of water and food. In building Ma’an, the Ottoman sultans wanted to provide – besides their protection – services to the caravans and shelter for soldiers, control the roads and security, and strengthen their influence in the region.

The stones were worked using two techniques: polished stones were used mainly for the exterior and interior facing of the walls, the space between the two was filled with rubble (fragments left over from stonecutting), embedded in lime and sand mortar, and the partition walls of the various rooms of the fortress; boasted stones were used here and there on the façades. The bonding comprises ashlar and headers.

The fortress of Ma’an lies about 210 kilometres from Amman, along the desert highway linking the capital of Jordan with the south of the country. It is a two-storey square structure with a rectangular courtyard in the middle. Although the outside of the building looks like a fortress, the inside looks like a palace.

The most important of the four façades are the north and south ones, each with an entrance block. In the south is a rectangular central entrance, topped with the foundation inscription and a decoration of embossed and intaglio rosettes. Above it, a machicolation resting on three corbels has three slots that allowed boiling liquids to be thrown on assailants. The canted half-dome roof has an opening for a canon pointed at the road below. The north entrance is similar to that of the south. It opens onto a passageway that opens onto the central courtyard surrounded by small rooms intended for the administrative staff; in the middle of the courtyard, a well supplied water. On either side of the south iwan, two staircases lead to the upper floor; a mezzanine balcony goes round the courtyard and opens onto rooms like those of the ground floor and a small mosque.

The fortress of Ma’an takes the topography of the site, the raw materials available in the vicinity and the climate into account. The separation into rooms and the form and layout of the building in general are similar to other square Ottoman fortresses, with courtyards free of any installations, in order to provide the air and light required by the rooms. The same plan is found in most of the Ottoman fortresses on the Syrian pilgrimage routes, such as Al-Qatraneh (1512–1520), the khan Qiyad Dhaba’ (1520) and the fort of Al-Hasa (1757–1774). It also spread to the Ottoman fortresses on the Egyptian pilgrimage route, such as, in Saudi Arabia, Fort Alaznm (1538) and Fort Wajh (1703).