Ashkelon

Ashkelon is a city on the Mediterranean coast of southern Israel and one of the oldest seaports of the Levant. A Philistine city in the Iron Age, it later flourished under Hellenistic, Roman and Islamic rule. As Ascalon it was the last Fatimid stronghold in Palestine until King Baldwin III of Jerusalem captured it in 1153; Saladin dismantled it in 1191, and the Mamluk sultan Baybars razed it in 1270.