Moussa Castle

Lebanon, Lebanon

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Moussa Castle is a privately built hilltop castle between the villages of Deir el Qamar and Beit ed‑Dine in the Shouf Mountains of Lebanon, about 40 kilometres from Beirut.

It was constructed single‑handedly over roughly 60 years by Moussa Abdel Karim Al Maamari, who began laying stones in the early 1960s and finished a 3,500‑square‑metre complex inspired by medieval European‑style fortresses, complete with towers, a moat, and ramparts.

The castle effectively functions as a family museum, housing Moussa’s vast collections of weapons, traditional costumes, artifacts, and life‑sized wax figures, and it opened to the public in the late 1960s, now serving as an eccentric cultural landmark that blends personal obsession with Lebanese heritage.