The Crusader town of Arsour, captured from the Muslims in 1101 CE, became the capital of the southern Sharon plain feudal seigniory (regional government). The fortress began construction in 1241 CE and served as the seat of the governor (seigneur).
The remains of a Roman villa, dating to the 1st to 2nd century CE, including a peristyle courtyard (one of only a few found in the region) and rooms opening into two corridors.
These remains were discovered underneath Early Islamic period walls and Byzantine installations.
The fortress courtyard is 85 feet long and 30 feet wide,
led into the surrounding rooms, and up into the second story
The fortress, built to defend both town and harbor, consisted of two stories (plan of the upper story remains unknown). In 1261 CE, threatened by the Mamluks, the seigneur Belian the 1st transferred the rights to the seigniory, the town and the fortress to the order of knights Hospitallers.
Several hundred Hospitallers, or knights of St. John of Jerusalem, a military religious order, lived in the fortress and defended the town and the access to the port. When the Mamluk Sultan baibars, at the head of his great army, laid siege to the town in the spring of 1265 CE, some 2,000 of the townspeople and soldiers found refuge in the fortress.
The ancient Crusader port, which connected the site to
Caesarea in the north and Jaffa in the south
The town fell after 40 days of fighting, and the fortress was captured 3 days later. Baibars forced the defeated Crusaders to raze and burns the walls of both fortress and town, which lay in ruins ever since.
