Flo's History

  In today's post, we will explore something a little different from usual. Indeed, I've decided that this week's post should be about a particular castle. This bastion was built by King Herod The Great, the last king of Judea before the Romans officially took over (they were the ones who installed Herod on the throne in the first place). Masada Castle was ordered sometime around 37 and 31 BCE by the king for unknown reasons, most likely as a symbol of power. It was viewed as Herod's greatest bastion and one of his most significant architectural projects. Sometime after his death, the Jewish revolt of 66 BCE started, and Masada was their last stand after the fall of Jerusalem. The Romans abandoned it after they conquered it. The fortress can be found in Israel, close to the Dead Sea. It is located on top of a rock cliff, elevated at around 450 meters from the ground, and is 400 meters above sea level. The fact that it was built on top of such a remote place makes it one...

  Let's go back in time by a couple of millions of years as we talk about dinosaurs for this week's post. The Liliensternus was a bipedal dinosaur that lived roughly 210 million years ago in the Late Triassic era. They were medium-sized bipedal carnivores long before early predators like Diliphosaure or Syntarsus (the latter could potentially even be a descendent of the Liliensternus). Eventually, that makes it one of the oldest carnivores in the dinosaur era. It shared the same time frame with his closest cousin: the Coelophysis – another small predator. Its adult size is still unknown, however. It was still considered young at 3 meters long, meaning that it could be much more significant. This dinosaur was first discovered in Germany in 1934 and was fully classified 50 years later. More recently, fossils were found in New Mexico, and they could potentially belong to Liliensternus.

  The Citadel of Aleppo is one of, if not, the oldest castle ever built in history. Still standing, the fortress was constructed around the middle of the 3rd millennium BC in what is known today as northern Syria. What is most remarkable about this castle is that it still stands relatively intact despite having been conquered many times. Going from the Greeks, to the Byzantium as well as the Ayyubids and the Mamluks it seems that every middle eastern dynasty once wanted to possess it!  In reality, the fortress we can see today isn’t the one that stood during the 3rd millennium BC.  It was actually built in the 12th century and was constructed as an answer by the Arabian state of Zangids against the threats of the crusades. It was then taken over by the Ayyubids dynasty when the legendary leader Al-Nasir Salah Al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, more commonly known as Saladin, unified the Muslim states against the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This place served as a purely defensive structure...