Halicarnas

Bodrum surrounds a harbour on the coast of Caria, at the site of ancient Halicarnassus. The city was the home of the historian Herodotus and the capital of Mausolus, whose monumental tomb became one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Above the water stands the Castle of Saint Peter, a later fortress whose walls incorporate stone from the older city and its celebrated mausoleum.

After Timur's campaign of 1402, the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes built a new stronghold on the headland at Halicarnassus. Its substantial towers and enclosing defensive walls secured a foothold on the Anatolian mainland opposite their island possessions. In the later fifteenth century the knights reinforced the castle, reusing blocks and carved fragments from the ruined Mausoleum. The fortress served the order as a harbour and refuge, including for Christians escaping captivity, in a coastal region contested by several rival land and maritime powers.

In 1522 Sultan Süleyman I captured Rhodes after a long siege. The Hospitallers departed, and Bodrum and its castle passed into Ottoman hands. The massive walls remained beside the harbour, joining the medieval history of the military order to the much older memory of Halicarnassus. The site illustrates how the monuments of one age could become building material for the defences of another.