Qasr Kharana

About this place

A massive square building standing alone on an open desert plain. From a distance it looks like a fort, with round towers and narrow slits, yet it is the most puzzling of the desert castles. An ink inscription on the wall of an upper room is dated 92 AH (711 AD), making it one of the earliest Umayyad buildings in Jordan. The slits in its walls are not for archers: they are too high and too narrow for fighting and most likely let in air and light. Scholars therefore think the building was a place where Umayyad governors met Bedouin tribal leaders, or a caravan inn, rather than a fort. Inside, an open courtyard is surrounded by some sixty rooms on two floors, and two wide staircases climb to the upper floor, where the finest rooms are: arches resting on small engaged columns, rows of decorated plaster roundels, and little domes. The castle is right on the Amman–Azraq highway, so it is usually the first stop on the desert castles loop; Qasr Amra is about 15 km further east.