{"id":6246,"date":"2025-08-03T14:47:46","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/masyaf-castle\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T14:53:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:53:30","slug":"masyaf-castle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/masyaf-castle\/","title":{"rendered":"Masyaf Castle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perched 20 meters above the plain on the left bank of the Orontes River in the southern Ghab region, Tel Asharneh holds the remains of the ancient city-state of Tunip. This significant city is notably mentioned in the Amarna letters (14th century BCE).<br \/>\nExcavations conducted by a Canadian expedition from Laval University (2004-2011) revealed a sprawling settlement covering 77 hectares. Among their key discoveries was a royal palace constructed of mudbrick, coated with white plaster, and featuring cedar wood flooring. This cedar flooring represents the earliest evidence of this timber&#8217;s use in the Near East. Further archaeological findings included cuneiform tablets, which indicate Tunip&#8217;s shifting alliances\u2014at times with the Mitanni and at others with the Hittites. This dynamic political alignment underscores the city&#8217;s strategic location at the heart of imperial conflicts during that era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perched 20 meters above the plain on the left bank of the Orontes River in the southern Ghab region, Tel Asharneh holds the remains of the ancient city-state of Tunip. This significant city is notably mentioned in the Amarna letters (14th century BCE). Excavations conducted by a Canadian expedition from Laval University (2004-2011) revealed a sprawling settlement covering 77 hectares. Among their key discoveries was a royal palace constructed of mudbrick, coated with white plaster, and featuring cedar wood flooring. This cedar flooring represents the earliest evidence of this timber&#8217;s use in the Near East. Further archaeological findings included cuneiform tablets, which indicate Tunip&#8217;s shifting alliances\u2014at times with the Mitanni and at others with the Hittites. This dynamic political alignment underscores the city&#8217;s strategic location at the heart of imperial conflicts during that era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[343,209],"tags":[243],"class_list":["post-6246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-castles-hama","category-hama","tag-preserved-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/syrian-treasures.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}