Qasr Kharana

Qasr Kharana is one of Jordan’s Desert Castles located in the arid Syrian-Jordanian desert, about 60 kilometers east of Amman on highway 40. The castle is square-shaped, with each side measuring 35 meters long. It has a typical plan, consisting of a courtyard surrounded by rooms arranged as accommodation units or bayt, which are of the “Syrian” type. The castle has four corner towers, a semicircular buttress in the middle of each wall, and a single entry.

Qasr Kharana’s unique features inherited from Sassanid Iran include squinches at points of transition and half-domes covering rectangular spaces. Some of the vaults resemble those found in pre-Islamic Iranian sites such as Ctesiphon and Sarvistan. Qasr Kharana served as a Bedouin meeting place with no military function, and its loopholes were solely for ventilation and decoration. The castle’s decoration is limited in terms of quantity, materials, and space, and its most striking feature is the stucco work over the entrance and on the upper floor.

The castle was built in the early Umayyad period by the Umayyad caliph Walid I, and its function is still debated among scholars. It may have been a fortress, a meeting place for Bedouins, or used as a caravanserai. Qasr Kharana sustained only temporary usage due to its limited water supply. The castle was abandoned and neglected in later centuries, suffering damage from several earthquakes. Alois Musil rediscovered it in 1901, and in the late 1970s, it was restored, with some changes made during the restoration. The castle is currently under the jurisdiction of the Jordanian Ministry of Antiquities, and access is controlled by the Ministry of Tourism, with an admission fee of JD 3 during daylight hours.