Chomot HaIr HaAtika

Acre's Southwestern Wall Preservation Project

The sea wall in Acre was built by the Bedouin Sheikh, Daher al-Omar, in the 18th century to turn the small fishing village into his capital. Since then, the various rulers of Acre strengthened the wall, carried out repairs, and changed its form.

From the sea, one sea wall surrounded the city. In its southwestern corner, "Burj Sanjak" (the Flag Tower) was incorporated into the wall, on which the British placed a lighthouse in the 1920s. In the breach of the wall at its base, a kind of lagoon formed over the years, containing the remnants of the foundations of the Crusader Templar fortress, which the Mamluks destroyed when they conquered Acre in 1291.

The wall is built of kurkar stones, some of which were taken from ancient buildings in the city and some were specially quarried for the construction of the wall. The preservation engineering survey initiated by the preservation department of the Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Company for the Development of Old Acre and Nazareth, together with the Israel Land Authority in 1997, identified defects and damages throughout the wall. The hundreds of years that have passed since its construction, the climate, the marine environment, additions, and other activities have caused the erosion of the building stones and the destruction of the wall. Iron anchoring rods that were incorporated into the wall, repairs that were carried out in concrete, the use of unsuitable binding materials, and a lack of professional maintenance created cracks in the wall, caused stones to fall, and led to the disintegration of the building materials.

The actual restoration and stabilization of the wall began in 2009, and since then it has been carried out in sections and according to priorities by preservation teams of the Company for the Development of Old Acre and Nazareth and independent preservation contractors.

The preservation project in the southwestern corner of the wall is intended to slow down the rate of erosion, repair the damage, and remove these dangers. The works include, among other things, the replacement of unstable building stones, the filling of cracks, and engineering reinforcements. The series of actions includes the reconstruction of missing sections of the wall, the filling of the wall's core with new binding materials, and the sealing of the tops of the walls.