| Fall of Sis | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia |  Mamluk Sultanate | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Leo V of Armenia (POW) | Al-Ashraf Sha'ban | ||||||
The fall of Sis or the siege of Sis was the capture of Sis and the destruction of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia by the Egyptian Sultanate. It occurred on 13 April 1375. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
After Rumkale was conquered by Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil by in 1292, [6] Sis became the Catholicos' residence. In 1266, the Egyptians looted and burnt the city following the Battle of Mari. [7] In 1275, Sultan Baybars invaded Cilician Armenia, sacked its capital Sis (but not the citadel) and demolished the royal palace. A century later, in 1369 the Egyptians again conquered the city, but were forced to leave. Finally, in 1375 Sultan Al-Ashraf Sha'ban decided to conquer the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia once and for all and annex it to the Egyptian Sultanate. [8] [1] [2]
The Egyptian forces moved from Cairo and met the Levantine forces in the city of Aleppo. Then they moved from Aleppo and conquered all the Armenian cities until the capital Sis fell to them and the King of Armenia, Leo V, was captured on 13 April 1375 alongside his wife and his family. He was sent as a prisoner to Cairo and was marched in a victory parade. [9] [2] [1] The Armenian king and his family remained captive here for 5 years until the King of Castile paid a large ransom to free him and his family. [1] [2] [3] [5]
Kozan, formerly Sis, is a municipality and district of Adana Province, Turkey. Its area is 1,903 km2, and its population is 132,703 (2022). It is 68 kilometres northeast of Adana, in the northern section of the Çukurova plain. The Kilgen River, a tributary of the Ceyhan, flows through Kozan and crosses the plain south into the Mediterranean. The Taurus Mountains rise up sharply behind the town.
The Ayyubid dynasty, also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin had originally served the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din, leading Nur ad-Din's army in battle against the Crusaders in Fatimid Egypt, where he was made Vizier. Following Nur ad-Din's death, Saladin was proclaimed as the first Sultan of Egypt by the Abbasid Caliphate, and rapidly expanded the new sultanate beyond the frontiers of Egypt to encompass most of the Levant, in addition to Hijaz, Yemen, northern Nubia, Tarabulus, Cyrenaica, southern Anatolia, and northern Iraq, the homeland of his Kurdish family. By virtue of his sultanate including Hijaz, the location of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, he was the first ruler to be hailed as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a title that would be held by all subsequent sultans of Egypt until the Ottoman conquest of 1517. Saladin's military campaigns in the first decade of his rule, aimed at uniting the various Arab and Muslim states in the region against the Crusaders, set the general borders and sphere of influence of the sultanate of Egypt for the almost three and a half centuries of its existence. Most of the Crusader states, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem, fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders reconquered the coast of Palestine in the 1190s.
Leo V or Levon V, of the House of Lusignan, was the last Latin king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Leo was described as "Leo V, King of Armenia" on his own personal seal, and as "Leo of Lusignan the Fifth" in the Middle French inscription on his cenotaph: Leon de Lizingnen quint.
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The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, also known as Cilician Armenia, Lesser Armenia, Little Armenia or New Armenia, and formerly known as the Armenian Principality of Cilicia, was an Armenian state formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia. Located outside the Armenian Highlands and distinct from the Kingdom of Armenia of antiquity, it was centered in the Cilicia region northwest of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
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