Ottoman Age and Mandate

[Picture source: © 1918 Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv]

When the city was taken by the Ottomans in 1516, they found a city with a prospering long distance trade that reached Europe. Within a century Aleppo was one of the most important cities in the Ottoman Empire after Constantinople and Cairo. The citadel became a military camp for Ottoman troops and evolved into an Ottoman small town in the middle of a multinational trading hub. As the Ottoman soldiers had no military tasks (aside form putting down periodic civil unrests[1]), they lived in a camp on the citadel and began to work as craftsmen or merchants.

After the massive earthquake in 1822, the Egyptian governor Ibrahim Pasha had to conduct some renovations on the citadel and constructed new military camps on the highest elevation in the north, for which he used stones of collapsed houses and the Ayyubid stepped-stone-structure.

During the Mandate (1920-1946) the French housed a garrison with a radio station in the Ottoman buildings. Remains of a lattice tower in a cement foundation probably date from this period. No other constructions are known. French activities during the Mandate also include excavations and other research activities.