Acre's location, on a bay by the sea, on one of the country's major highways, made it one of the main cities in the north. The earliest settlement in the area is marked by an ancient mound some distance from the sea, Tell Fukhar, where excavations have revealed fortifications from the Middle Bronze Age. In the Persian and Hellenistic periods the settlement expanded westward, toward the sea. Ptolemy II (early third century BCE) made it into a polis (Greek city-state) and named it Ptolemais in his own honor; it became the major port of Palestine.
The Crusaders, assisted by the Genoan fleet, conquered Acre in 1104, and the city with its harbor assumed a central position in the Latin Kingdom. In 1191, after the Third Crusade and the Crusaders' failure to reestablish their rule in Jerusalem, Acre, retaken shortly before from the Muslims, became their new capital. The city was divided into quarters, each inhabited by merchants from different Mediterranean ports, such as Venice, Genoa and Pisa. It maintained its position for one century, until captured and razed to the ground by the Mamluks in 1291.
Two hundred years later, at the beginning of the Ottoman period, Acre was rebuilt. Strong local chieftains settled there and built, including the Druse Fakhr al-Din (seventeenth century), Dhaher al-`Amr (mid eighteenth century) and Ahmad al-Jazzar (late eighteenth century). The last major event before the advent of the Modern Era was Napoleon's unsuccessful siege of Acre in 1799.
Acre's skyline and plan today comprise late architectural elements, mainly from the Ottoman period, including the great mosque of Jazzar Pasha, various khans and much of the city walls. Inside the city there are impressive Crusader remains, mainly in the crypts of the Citadel and its vicinity, in the north of the Old City. More and more of these remains are being discovered as the extensive excavations continue.