Khan Beit Jabbour in Baniyas

A late Ottoman khan in the centre of Baniyas, on the edge of the coast road and looking straight out to sea. A khan is a merchants’ inn built around a courtyard, and this one is a rectangle of about 1000 square metres: the main gate on the west opens into an open courtyard, and the rooms are ranged around it. It is a plain, small-town version of the great khans of Aleppo and Damascus. It began as a caravanserai, became a tobacco store and then a home for Armenian families; today part of its roof has fallen in.

When it was built

The exact year is not known, and the sources disagree. One local source says the khan is several centuries old. A piece published in 2026 dates it after 1870, when the seat of the Marqab district moved to Baniyas. No inscription or document has been published that settles which is right.

Its past lives

It was first used as a caravanserai and trading house. In 1935 it became a store for the tobacco company in Latakia. After 1947 Armenian families moved in, using it for workshops and housing, which is where its old popular name, Khan al-Arman, comes from. In the 1950s it passed to the Jabbour family. The Tartus antiquities department registered it as a protected building in 2012.

What to see

The walls are dressed sandstone; the arches and doorways are tall and the windows long. The west and east wings have two storeys, the north and south wings one. A stone stair on the west side of the courtyard climbs to the upper floor. On the ground floor there is a yard where horses were tied and an eastern arcade, with two rooms above the entrance. The ceilings were timber beams and boards covered with mortar; some sections were later replaced with concrete.

The khan today

The ceilings of the north wing have collapsed completely, and the ceiling of the main room is down. In 2011 a single person lived inside and grew vegetables in the courtyard. The building is private property, and it is not clear whether you can go in. The main gate is on the west, the sea side; the outer wall and the gate can be seen from the street.

What most people miss

The difference in height between the wings. Look into the courtyard from the threshold and the two-storey east wing and the single-storey north wing appear in the same view, so the whole plan reads at a glance.