Acre is the rarest kind of archaeological site — a medieval city preserved not in ruins but under a later one. When the Ottoman town was rebuilt on the promontory, the Crusader city beneath was filled and built over, sealing streets, halls and vaults almost intact. Excavation has since reopened the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller: a monumental complex of pillared halls, a great refectory with massive vaults springing from central piers, a courtyard, dormitories, latrines and service rooms, connected by passages that run beneath the modern lanes. Walking through it, the visitor moves through a genuine thirteenth-century interior while the inhabited Ottoman city continues overhead. Nearby, an underground tunnel attributed to the Templars runs beneath the town towards the port. The old city of Acre is inscribed on the World Heritage list precisely for this superimposition of a Crusader capital and an Ottoman port town. Filmed in 4K with dedicated low-light work under the vaults, the programme captures the scale and stone-cutting of Crusader architecture at its most impressive, and one of the most powerful visitor experiences in the eastern Mediterranean.
