- Depth
- Up to 125 m
- Oldest
- Hellenistic well
- Main system
- Satura, Ayyubid
- Purpose
- Siege water supply
Sieges are not decided by walls. They are decided by water, and this is where the Citadel of Aleppo won most of its arguments.
Shafts descend as much as a hundred and twenty-five metres from the summit, cut straight through the rock of the mound and connected to cisterns large enough to hold the garrison's supply. The oldest is Hellenistic; the main Ayyubid system, the Satura, belongs with al-Zahir Ghazi's rebuilding.
This is the least visible work on the mound and the most consequential. A fortress with water is a fortress that waits, and waiting was the whole Ayyubid strategy. It is also why the Citadel's defeats came by trick, by starvation of the city below, or by negotiation — rarely by assault.