The ruins of the Thurant Castle (, also Thurandt or Thurand) stand on a wide slate hill spur above the villages of Alken on the Moselle in Germany. The castle is in the district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate and belongs to the spur castle type. Vine gardens on the sunniest slope. From the mid-13th century the archbishops of Cologne and Trier were joint owners and had their respective property managed by burgraves. As a result, each half of the castle had its own bergfried, living/domestic buildings and entrance. From the early 16th century the double castle gradually fell into disrepair and was made a complete ruin during the destruction wrought by the War of the Palatine Succession. Robert Allmers (1872–1951) from Varel, co-founder of the Hansa Automobil company and, from 1914, director of Bremen's Hansa Lloyd factories, bought the site in 1911 and had part of it rebuilt. The castle is in private hands, but may be visited from March to mid-November for a fee. Under to the Heritage Monument Conservation Act of the state, the whole site is a protected monument so is incorporated into the state monument list. It is a protected cultural object under the Hague Convention, bearing its blue and white signs. History Pottery finds point to a Roman settlement on the hill spur, but the first record of the place dates to the year 1209. Count Palatine Henry I the Tall from the House of Welf probably had a fortification built on the present site between 1198 and 1206 in order to secure the claims of his brother, Emperor Otto IV, in the Moselle region. According to tradition, he named the hill castle after Toron Castle near Tyros in present-day Lebanon, which he had besieged in vain during the Battle of Barbarossa during the Third Crusade. After Count Palatine Henry II the Younger died without male issue in 1214, Emperor Frederick II gave the castle and the village of Alken as an imperial fief together with the Palatinate to the House of Wittelsbach who were loyal to the Hohenstaufens. Being relatively near Trier, the castle was also, however, claimed by the archbishops of Cologne and Trier. In 1216 Engelbert I of Cologne succeeded in taking the castle by force. Although Pope Honorius III protested against this act, Engelbert retained possession of his prize until his death in November 1225, when the castle went back into