Port of Bodrum Postcard

Bodrum Castle or St Peter Castle (Petronium), Bodrum, Turkey The castle was built by the nearby Rhodos based Knights Hospitaller to be their gate to the mainland. During the construction the ruins of an ionic and a Selcuk castle were used as building material. The Knights also demolished the remains of one of the Ancient world's wonders, the Mausoleum, located in the same city. Heinrich Schlegelholt, a Geman knight designed the fortress in 1402. The Pope guaranteed "free" salvation for every worker. Each tongue (nation) of the Order had a tower. Seven gates gave access to interior of the building. The Knights fought back two major Osman sieges in the 15th century. The growing power of the canons forced the Hospitallers to thicken the walls of the castle. The marble blocks of the Mausoleum served again as building materials. Petronium was never conquered. 200,000 Turkish soldiers besieged the hearth of the Order on the Island of Rhodes and that castle fell after a seven month length siege and the Hospitaller had to surrender their castles in Kos and in Bodrum. Turks transformed the chapel into a mosque and a minaret was added to the original structure. Evliya Chelebi described the castle in 1671. Rounds from the cannons of a French destroyer destroyed the minaret during WW1. Today the castle houses a great Underwater Archaeology Museum.