Balis (Barbalissos) and its Ayyubid Minaret

Balis is a town on the great bend of the Euphrates, near present-day Maskanah, that was lived in from Roman times to the Mamluks. Its ancient name was Barbalissos. Two structures are still visible: a brick minaret built in 1210 under the Ayyubids, the dynasty founded by Saladin’s family, and a Byzantine tower that remains standing. It is a separate place from Emar (Tell Meskene), the Bronze Age city in the same area, and it tells a much later story.

Where it is and getting there

The remains lie east of Aleppo, in the Maskanah area near the shore of Lake Assad. Published coordinates for the site differ by kilometres, and one of them actually marks the neighbouring Emar mound. For that reason we give no map pin. The minaret rises alone on flat ground, and the safest approach is to ask the way in Maskanah. How much of the old town Lake Assad now covers needs to be checked on site.

What you see

The minaret is a brick tower with a many-sided shaft on a square base, pierced by narrow windows and ringed with decorative brick bands. It was built in 1210, in the reign of the Ayyubid sultan al-Adil. The Mamluks added to it, and it was repaired in the 20th century. A Byzantine tower also still stands on the site.

The battle of 253

Under the Persians the place had the Aramaic name Bayt Bala. In Roman times Barbalissos was a frontier fort in the province of Euphratensis and home to a garrison of Dalmatian cavalry, the Equites Dalmatae Illyriciani. In 253 the Persian king Shapur I routed a Roman army here. He then went on to burn Antioch, Zeugma and Samosata.

Bishops, conquest and canals

The town was a bishopric in the early Christian period. Antonius, bishop of Barbalissos, appears on the list of the Council of Nicaea in 325. In 431 bishop Aquilinus was exiled for his Nestorian views. In the 6th century Justinian rebuilt the town walls.

In 637 the town surrendered by treaty to Habib ibn Maslama. Most of its people left, and tribes of Qays settled in their place. The Umayyad prince Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik took over the district, and the Nahr Maslama and Nahr Said canals were dug. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid gave the town to his son al-Ma’mun.

1916: Maskanah

In 1916 Maskanah was one of the stations of the Armenian deportations, and about 80 thousand people are recorded as having died there. The history of the plain around the minaret is not only medieval.

Don’t miss

The brick bands on the minaret’s shaft. From a distance it looks like a plain tower; up close you can make out patterns and strips formed by bricks laid in different directions.