Turkey: The resort town of Bodrum

Visit Bodrum Castle and the Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Construction on Bodrum Castle began in 1402 by the Knights of St John (the Knights Hospitaller), who named it the Castle of St Peter. It has four towers named French, English, German and Italian after the nations who helped build the castle. The chapel was added in 1407, and the walls were completed in 1437. A major reconstruction was started in the 14th Century, but the castle was then captured by the Ottoman Empire in 1523 who added a mosque and a minaret. It remained in use for over 400 years until World War I.

We would have been interested in visiting the castle in its own right, but it is also to the Museum of Underwater Archaeology. Two exciting things to see for the price of one.

There was a queue at the ticket office when we arrived, but we didn’t mind as there was plenty to see. We were waiting next to the marina of Bodrum which is full of large, expensive boats, which makes for great people watching. Our time in line shot by – it was almost sad it didn’t last a little longer.

We entered the castle through the outer wall and climbed the staircase to the battlements. In several places there were stones in the wall that had been carved with the coat of arms of the resident knights. From the battlements there were great views across the marina and out towards the ocean. These views did not go unnoticed by some annoying people taking endless pictures of each other for their Instagram posts – do I sound old and grumpy, or what!

From the outer wall we crossed a bridge and entered the gate to the inner areas and the keeps.

Inside the walls is the mosque and minarets that were added to the castle after they captured it in the 14th century. There were also several artefacts collected from the underwater excavations including giant anchors and canons.

Just up the hill from the mosque was an exhibition hall called the Serçe Harbour Glass Shipwreck Exhibition Hall – which is a bit of a mouthful. Inside is a recovered wreck of a Byzantine ship dating back to the 11th century which sank in the natural bay in Serçe Harbour near Marmaris. The main cargo of this ship was tons of raw glass and waste glass that would have been recycled to make new glass objects. The excavation of this wreck was a painstaking process and used revolutionary methods. A large team of divers spent years working on the wreck and recovered a huge amount of glass vessels in various states (which they reassembled many pieces), Islamic gold, Byzantine copper coins, Byzantine and Islamic weights, lead seals and weapons. Most of the artefacts are on display in the museum.

There are a couple of other wrecks in the museum that were very interesting.

The Uluburun, named because of its location, dates to the Bronze Age. The ship carried 10 tons of copper ingots and 1 ton of tin, which were the main cargo of the ship. The glass ingots found on board are the oldest known glass ingots in history. Also, 150 clay jars, bronze tools, ostrich eggs, seals and statuettes are among the remains recovered from the ship. Aboard the ship was found a seal of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti which led to the conclusion that this was an Egyptian Royal Ship. The shipwreck is considered one of the most important finds from the Late Bronze Age in the Mediterranean.

The Bozukkale Shipwreck Hall of the museum exhibits artefacts recovered from the shipwreck in Bozukkale district at a depth of between 30-47 meters. The Bozukkale Shipwreck, which dates to the Archaic period, differs from all other shipwrecks found in the Aegean and the Mediterranean by its cargo of more than 300 moratoriums and the first and only known group of terracotta and limestone sculptures in the Mediterranean.

It is believed that the large and wide moratorium-type bowls, often used for crushing and grinding spices and grains, were also used for food offerings at sacred sites. It is claimed that the ship was carrying a special cargo and that they were votive statues that were brought to the temples as offerings.

As well as exhibiting underwater artefacts there are other displays, mainly within the towers of the castle that show collections found across the region. One exhibit focuses on the early history of the castle and its establishment by the Knights of St John.

It was a great museum and was extremely well presented. We went in with fairly low expectations and they were well exceeded.