Bodrum Castle (Turkish: Bodrum Kalesi) is a historical fortification located in southwest Turkey in the portcity of Bodrum, built from 1402 onwards, by the Knights of St John (Knights Hospitaller) as the Castle of St. Peter or Petronium. A transnational effort, it has four towers known as the English, French, German, and Italian towers, bearing the names of the nations responsible for their construction. The chapel was built around 1407 and the first walls completed in 1437. The castle started reconstruction in the late 14th century, only to be taken over by the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1523. The chapel was converted to a mosque, and a minaret was added. The castle remained under the empire for almost 400 years. After remaining empty following World War I, in the early 1960s, the castle became the home for the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology. In 2016 it was inscribed in the UNESCOTentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey.[1]
Stained-glass Knights Hospitaller coats of arms in the English Tower.
Confronted by the now firmly established Ottoman Sultanate, the Knights Hospitaller, whose headquarters were on the island of Rhodes, needed another stronghold on the mainland. Grand Master Philibert de Naillac (1396–1421) identified a suitable site across from the island of Kos, where a castle had already been built by the Order. Its location was the site of a fortification in Doric times (1110 BC) as well as of a small Seljuk castle in the 11th century. The same promontory is also the probable site of the Palace of Mausolos, the famous King of Caria.[2] In his travel diary Travels In Asia Minor, Charles Boileau Elliot describes this palace as the Palace of Mausolus with absolute certainty, and this account was written in the year 1840.
The French Tower.
The construction of the castle began in 1404[3] under the supervision of the German knight architect Heinrich Schlegelholt. Construction workers were guaranteed a reservation in heaven by a Papal Decree of 1409.[4] They used squared green volcanic stone, marble columns and reliefs from the nearby Mausoleum of Halicarnassus to fortify the castle.
The first walls were completed in 1437. The chapel was among the first completed inner structures (probably 1406). It consists of a vaulted nave and an apse. The chapel was reconstructed in Gothic style by SpanishKnights of Malta in 1519–1520. Their names can be found on two cornerstones of the façade. Fourteen cisterns for collecting rainwater were excavated in the rocks under the castle. This was a monumental achievement of the day and the family who completed the excavation were given the honorific of "Burrows" for their exceptional digging skills.
Each langue of the Order had its own tower, each in its own style. Each tongue, each headed by a Bailiff, was responsible for the maintenance and defense of a specific portion of the fortress and for manning it with sufficient numbers of knights and soldiers. There were seven gates leading to the inner part of the fortress.
The architect applied the latest features in castle design; the passages leading to the gates were full of twists and turns. Eventual assailants could not find cover against the arrows, stones or heated projectiles they had to confront. The knights had placed above the gates and on the walls hundreds of painted coats of arms and carved reliefs. Two hundred and forty-nine separate designs still remain, including those of grand masters, castle commandants, countries, and personal coat of arms of knights and religious figures.
The construction of the three-storied English tower was finished in 1413. One door opens to the north, to the inner part of the castle, while the other leads to the western rampart. One could only access this tower via a drawbridge. The western façade shows an antique carved relief of a lion. Because of this relief, the tower was also called "the Lion Tower". Above this lion, one can see the coat of arms of King Henry IV of England.
For over a century St. Peter's Castle remained the second most important castle of the Order. It served as a refuge for all Christians in Asia Minor.
The castle came under attack with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, first after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and again in 1480 by Sultan Mehmed II. The attacks were repelled by the Knights of St John. In 1482, Prince Cem Sultan, son of Sultan Mehmed II and brother of Sultan Bayezid II, sought refuge in the castle, after a failure in raising a revolt against his brother.
A disused cannon.
When the Knights decided to fortify the castle in 1494, they used stones from the Mausoleum once again. The walls facing the mainland were thickened in order to withstand the increasing destructive power of cannon. The walls facing the sea were less thick, since the Order had little to fear from a sea attack due to their powerful naval fleet. Grand MasterFabrizio del Carretto (1513–21) built a round bastion to strengthen the land side of the fortress. SirThomas Docwra was appointed Captain of the Castle in 1499.
16th century
Between 1505 and 1507 the few sculptures from the mausoleum that had not been smashed and burnt for lime were integrated into the castle for decoration. These included twelve slabs of the Amazonomachy (combat between Amazons and Greeks) and a single block of the Centauromachy, a few standing lions, and one running leopard.
Philippe Villiers, who ordered the Castle to be fortified.
When faced with an attack from Sultan Suleiman, Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers, ordered the Castle to be strengthened again. Much of the remaining portions of the mausoleum were broken up and used as building material to fortify the castle. By 1522 almost every block of the mausoleum had been removed.
In June 1522 the sultan attacked the Order's headquarters in Rhodes from the Bay of Marmaris with 200,000 soldiers (Siege of Rhodes (1522)). The castle of Rhodes fell in December 1522. The terms of surrender included the handing over of the Knights' fortresses in Kos and St Peter's Castle in Bodrum.
After the surrender, the chapel was converted into a mosque and a minaret was added. This mosque was called the Süleymaniye Camii, as attested by a traveler, Evliya Chelebi, who visited Bodrum in 1671. The minaret was destroyed on 26 May 1915 by rounds fired by a French warship during World War I. It was reconstructed in its original shape in 1997.
19th century
In 1846 Lord Canning, HMAmbassador to Constantinople, obtained permission to remove twelve marble reliefs showing a combat between Greeks and Amazons from the castle. Sir Charles Newton, a member of the staff of the British Museum, conducted excavations and removed a number of stone lions and one leopard in 1856. These are all still to be found today at the British Museum.[5]
In later years, the castle has been used for different purposes. It was used as a military base by the Turkish Army during the Greek Revolt in 1824. In the 19th century, the chapel which had been converted for use as a mosque had a minaret added. At the same time, a hamam (public bath) was installed in the castle. In 1895 the castle was turned into a prison. During World War I, the castle was fired upon by a French warship, toppling the minaret and damaging several towers. After the Great War, the Italians established a garrison in the castle but withdrew in 1921 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk came to power, when the castle stood empty for 40 years.[citation needed]
Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Bodrum Castle in 2020.
In 1962 the Turkish Government decided to turn the castle into a museum for the underwater discoveries of ancient shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea. This has become the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology,[6] with a collection of amphoras, ancient glass, bronze, clay, and iron items. It is the biggest museum of its kind devoted to underwater archaeology.[citation needed] Most of its collection dates from underwater excavations carried out by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) after 1960. These excavations were performed on several shipwrecks:
Finike-Gelidonya shipwreck (12th century BC): 1958–1959; first underwater excavation in Turkey[7]
Bodrum-Yassiada shipwreck (Byzantine, 7th century AD): 1961–1964; Roman merchant vessel with 900 amphoras
Bodrum -Yassiada shipwreck (Late Roman, 4th century AD)
Bodrum-Yassiada shipwreck (Ottoman, 16th century AD) (dated by a 16th-century four-real silver coin from Seville (Philip II) )
Kaṣ-Uluburun shipwreck (14th century BC): 1982–1995; 10 tons of Cypriot copper ingots; one ton of pure tin ingots; 150 glass ingots; manufactured goods; Mycenaean pottery; Egyptian seals (with a seal of queen Nefertiti) and jewelry[8]
Tektaṣ Burnu Classical Greek shipwreck (5th century BC): 1999-2001
The former chapel houses an exhibition of vases and amphoras form the Mycenaean age (14th to 12th centuries BC) and findings from the Bronze Age (around 2500 BC). The commercial amphoras give a historical overview of the development of amphoras and their varied uses.[9]
The Italian Tower houses a collection spanning many centuries in the Coin and Jewelry Hall.[quantify] Another exhibition room is devoted exclusively to the tomb of a Carian princess, who died between 360 and 325 BC. The collection of ancient glass objects is one of the four largest ancient glass collections in the world.[citation needed]
Finally, two ancient shipwrecks have been reconstructed: the Fatımi ship, sunk in 1077 AD, and the large Uluburun Shipwreck from the 14th century BC.
A garden inside the castle is a collection of almost every plant and tree of the Mediterranean region,[citation needed] including both the myrtle, and the plane tree. Turquoise and amber peacocks parade under flowering trees and bushes. From the towers it is possible to see the entire city as well as some of the neighboring bays.[10]
Model of the Yassiada vessel (Byzantine, 7th century)
Egyptian jewelry (Uluburun shipwreck)
Collection of amphoras from different parts of the Mediterranean
↑ George F. Bass; Peter Throckmorton; Joan Du Plat Taylor; J. B. Hennessy; Alan R. Shulman; Hans-Gunter Buchholz (1967). "Cape Gelidonya: A Bronze Age Shipwreck". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. 57 (8): 1–177. doi:10.2307/1005978. JSTOR1005978.
↑ "The Uluburun shipwreck (in Res Maritimae: Cyprus and Eastern Mediterranean from Prehistory to Late Antiquity". Cyprus American Research Institute Monograph Series. 1: 233–262. 1997.
↑ Alpözen, T. O.; A. H. Özdaş & B. Berkaya. (1995). Commercial Amphoras of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology. Ankara: Dönmez Offset.
Maritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore-side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged landscapes. A specialty within maritime archaeology is nautical archaeology, which studies ship construction and use.
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC in Halicarnassus for Mausolus, an Anatolian from Caria and a satrap in the Achaemenid Empire, and his sister-wife Artemisia II of Caria. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythius of Priene. Its elevated tomb structure is derived from the tombs of neighbouring Lycia, a territory Mausolus had invaded and annexed c. 360 BC, such as the Nereid Monument.
Cape Gelidonya, formerly Kilidonia or Killidonia is a cape or headland on the Teke Peninsula in the chain of Taurus Mountains, located on the southern coast of Anatolia between the Gulf of Antalya and the Bay of Finike.
Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city in Caria, in Anatolia. It was located in southwest Caria, on an advantageous site on the Gulf of Gökova, which is now in Bodrum, Turkey. The city was famous for the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, also known simply as the Tomb of Mausolus, whose name provided the origin of the word "mausoleum". The mausoleum, built from 353 to 350 BC, ranked as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Bodrum is a port city in Muğla Province, southwestern Turkey, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Its population was 35,795 at the 2012 census, with a total of 136,317 inhabitants residing within the district's borders. Known in ancient times as Halicarnassus, the city was once home to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, also known as the tomb of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The Uluburun Shipwreck is a Late Bronze Age shipwreck dated to the late 14th century BC, discovered close to the east shore of Uluburun, Turkey, in the Mediterranean Sea. The shipwreck was discovered in the summer of 1982 by Mehmed Çakir, a local sponge diver from Yalıkavak, a village near Bodrum.
The Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) is the world's oldest organization devoted to the study of humanity's interaction with the sea through the practice of archaeology.
Ada of Caria was a member of the House of Hecatomnus and ruler of Caria during the mid-4th century BC, first as Persian Satrap and later as Queen under the auspices of Alexander III of Macedon.
The Kyrenia Ship is the wreck of a 4th-century BC ancient Greek merchant ship. It was discovered by Greek-Cypriot diving instructor Andreas Cariolou in November 1965 during a storm. Having lost the exact position, Cariolou carried out more than 200 dives until he re-discovered the wreck in 1967 close to Kyrenia in Cyprus. Michael Katzev, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, directed a scientific excavation from 1967–69. Preservation of the ship's timbers continued during the winter of 1970. Katzev later was a co-founder of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. The find was extensively covered in a documentary by the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation titled "With Captain, Sailors Three: The Ancient Ship of Kyrenia". The ship itself was very well preserved with approximately 75% of its hull in good condition. It found a new home at the Ancient Shipwreck Museum in Kyrenia Castle, where it remains on exhibit.
The Turkish Riviera, also known popularly as the Turquoise Coast, is an area of southwest Turkey encompassing the provinces of Antalya and Muğla, and to a lesser extent Aydın, southern İzmir and western Mersin. The combination of a favorable climate, warm sea, mountainous scenery, fine beaches along more than a 1,000 km (620 mi) of shoreline along the Aegean and Mediterranean waters, and abundant natural and archaeological points of interest makes this stretch of Turkey's coastline a popular national and international tourist destination.
Mensun Bound is a British maritime archaeologist born in Stanley, Falkland Islands. He is best known as director of exploration for two expeditions to the Weddell Sea which led to the rediscovery of the Endurance, in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship sank after being crushed by the ice on 21 November 1915. It was rediscovered by the Endurance22 expedition on 5 March 2022.
Edgerton Alvord Throckmorton, known as Peter Throckmorton, was an American photojournalist and a pioneer underwater archaeologist. Throckmorton was a founding member of the Sea Research Society and served on its Board of Advisors until his death in 1990. He was also a trustee for NUMA and was an instructor at Nova Southeastern University.
Oxhide ingots are heavy metal slabs, usually of copper but sometimes of tin, produced and widely distributed during the Mediterranean Late Bronze Age (LBA). Their shape resembles the hide of an ox with a protruding handle in each of the ingot’s four corners. Early thought was that each ingot was equivalent to the value of one ox. However, the similarity in shape is simply a coincidence. The ingots' producers probably designed these protrusions to make the ingots easily transportable overland on the backs of pack animals. Complete or partial oxhide ingots have been discovered in Sardinia, Crete, Peloponnese, Cyprus, Cannatello in Sicily, Boğazköy in Turkey, Qantir in Egypt, and Sozopol in Bulgaria. Archaeologists have recovered many oxhide ingots from two shipwrecks off the coast of Turkey.
Honor Frost was a pioneer in the field of underwater archaeology, who led many Mediterranean archaeological investigations, especially in Lebanon, and was noted for her typology of stone anchors and skills in archaeological illustration.
Milas is an ancient city and the seat of the district of the same name in Muğla Province in southwestern Turkey. The city commands a region with an active economy and is very rich in history and ancient remains, the territory of Milas containing a remarkable twenty-seven archaeological sites of note. The city was the first capital of ancient Caria and of the Anatolian beylik of Menteşe in mediaeval times. The nearby Mausoleum of Hecatomnus is classified as a tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Yassi Ada is an island off the coast of Bodrum, Turkey. This area of the Mediterranean Sea is prone to strong winds, making a safe journey around the island difficult. The island could be called a ships' graveyard, on account of the number of wrecked ships off its southeastern tip. Three wreck sites have been excavated under the direction of George Bass of Texas A&M University. The first to be studied using archaeological techniques was a 4th-century Byzantine wreck, the second a 7th-century Byzantine wreck, and the third a 16th-century Ottoman wreck. Bass received funding for a summer excavation at the site from the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and the National Geographic Society.
Sinop Archaeological Museum, or Sinop Museum, is a national museum in Sinop, Turkey, exhibiting archaeological artifacts found in and around the city.
Amasya Museum, also known as Archaeological Museum of Amasya, is a national museum in Amasya, northern Turkey, exhibiting archaeological artifacts found in and around the city as well as ethnographic items related to the region's history of cultural life. Established in 1958, the museum owns nearly twenty-four thousand items for exhibition belonging to eleven historic civilizations.
Arslan Eyce Private Amphora Museum, also known as Taşucu Amphora Museum, is a maritime archaeology museum dedicated to amphora in Taşucu, southern Turkey.
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