Mamlük Caravansarais in Galilee

Abstract

The article discusses two medieval khāns or caravansarais, Khān al-Tujjār and Khān Jubb Yūsuf. They illustrate two distinct variants of a familiar medieval building type. Khān al-Tujjār, which is much the larger of the two and whose two phases of construction may be dated tentatively to the early fifteenth and the late sixteenth centuries, is typical in its final form of the huge Ottoman caravansarais (often fortified, or—as here—guarded by adjoining purpose-built forts) built in the Levant from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. They often serviced pilgrim traffic (hence their great size) as well as merchant caravans. Khān Jubb Yūsuf, on the other hand, whose masonry technique suggests that it might date from the fourteenth century, typifies the much more modest khāns, built in chains along the principal trade routes of the area and often erected at the behest of Mamlük officials, which preceded the grander caravansarais of the Ottoman period.