Bodrum Castle

The castle occupies a rocky promontory at Bodrum harbour, built chiefly of squared green volcanic stone and finished with reused marble columns and sculptural blocks taken from the nearby Mausoleum. The plan combines multiple towers and a defended inner ward, approached by a series of gates and twisting passageways that lengthen and complicate any approach. Seven gates lead into the inner fortress, and the landward side was reinforced with a round bastion added in the early sixteenth century to meet the threat of gunpowder artillery.

A group of towers forms a prominent feature. Four are traditionally identified with the Order’s national groups and are named the English, French, German and Italian towers. The English, or Lion, Tower is three storeys high and was completed in 1413. It opened to the castle interior on its northern side and to the western rampart on its other side, and it was reached originally by a drawbridge. A carved lion relief decorates the western face and above it appears the coat of arms of King Henry IV of England.

The chapel presents a vaulted nave and an apse. Built soon after construction began, it was rebuilt in a Gothic manner in 1519–1520 by Spanish members of the Order, their names marked on two cornerstones. After Ottoman conquest it was adapted for use as a mosque and a minaret was attached; that minaret fell during the 1915 bombardment and was reconstructed in 1997. In its present museum role the former chapel houses collections of Mycenaean and Bronze Age vases and amphoras.

Water supply was organised beneath the fortress, where fourteen cisterns were cut into the rock to collect rainwater. Defensive adjustments are visible in the fabric: sections of the walls facing inland were thickened in the late fifteenth century with stone taken from the Mausoleum to resist cannon, while the sea-facing walls are noticeably thinner. Passages and approaches retain deliberately indirect lines that complicate access.

The castle’s decorative programme used a rich array of heraldry and sculptural relief. Hundreds of painted coats of arms and carved reliefs were placed on walls and above gates, and 249 distinct heraldic or relief designs are counted among the surviving examples. Between 1505 and 1507 several large sculptural blocks from the Mausoleum were incorporated into the fortress for decoration, including twelve slabs showing Amazonomachy scenes, a block with a Centauromachy, several sculpted lions and a figure of a running leopard. Some of these elements were later removed and dispersed to other collections.

Later changes altered the internal layout and functions. Spaces within the walls were used as a bathhouse and a prison before the twentieth century museum conversion. The Italian Tower contains the Coin and Jewelry Hall and an exhibition devoted to the tomb of a Carian princess who died between 360 and 325 BC. Two reconstructed ancient shipwrecks are displayed under the ramparts: the Fatimi vessel, which sank in 1077 AD, and the Uluburun shipwreck, dated to the fourteenth century BC. A garden inside the castle supports Mediterranean plants and trees, and the towers afford views across the town and neighbouring bays.