Burj el-Aḥmar (the Red Tower)

IDENTIFICATION AND EXPLORATION

The surviving remains of Burj el-Aḥmar (the Red Tower, known in Crusader sources as Turris Rubea, Turris Latinae, or Turriclee) consist of the southern wall and part of the ground floor of a medieval tower-keep. The site is surrounded by other, later ruins on a roughly rectangular rise midway between Netanya and Tulkarm in the center of the Sharon Plain. It was one of a group of small Crusader installations in the area, including Qaqun (Yikon), ‘Umm Khalid (Netanya), Madd ed-Dair (Kibbutz Ma‘barot), and Qalansuwa, which were investigated by the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem in 1983.