Bodrum Castle

We have seen our share of castles. Most are ruins; many are hulks; some few are hulks with contrived collections; few contain anything beyond local significance; very, very few contain a collection that is world-class and of world-significance. Bodrum is in that last category. The castle itself was built by "Crusaders" in the early 1400s, after most castle-building in Europe was done. It fell to the Ottomans a century later, without a fight. It was maintained with a modest garrison, then abandoned and left to itself for centuries. In 1915, the French battleship Duplex shelled it briefly. Then, in the 1960s, it came to be used to store the incredible archaeological finds coming out of Turkish waters with the advent of scuba-diving and underwater archaeology. In addition to its remarkable state, its gardens and many displays and exhibits of interest, it now houses the Bodrum Museum of Nautical Archaeology, the largest and most impressive of its kind. I'll have to do a separate post on the museum.

Each of the five "Crusading" nations built one of Bodrum's

tall towers

Red wine and beef; the castle and grounds

are littered with items such as this

Sacrifical altar

Ramp leading into inner castle

We think of container ships as something new, but all the

ancient maritime trade in the Mediterranean, going back
3,500 years, or more, carried standardized containers--
amphora jars--in which were stored grains, wine, olive oil,
precious materials; metals and unworked glass came in
standardized ingots; this is a smidge of Bodrum's
collection of amphora jars, the world's largest

Beautiful amphora mosaic



The castle courtyards and grounds are a beautiful

Mediterranean garden with many unusual species; and

peacocks roaming around

Vicki under the mulberry tree



Sculpture gardens

Inscription gardens

Ship anchor gardens (pre-Iron Age!)

Another reason to like Ataturk: he

understood Turkey's past and valued its

museums