Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum

Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum, located within Bodrum Castle, is considered one of the most important underwater archeology museums in the world. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Bodrum. The museum has 14 exhibition halls and hosts the world's richest collection of Eastern Mediterranean amphoras. It also includes the shipwrecks of Yassıada, Devil's Creek and Serçe Harbor.

The world's oldest sunken ship remains, exhibited in the museum, also attract great attention. This shipwreck, exhibited at the Serçe Harbor Glass Wreck Hall, is the ship itself that sank in 1025 and contains 3 tons of broken and intact glass. Additionally, the world's largest Islamic Glass Collection is exhibited in the museum.

Amphora Exhibition

When you enter the inner castle, there is an amphora display under the porch under the main walls on the left. The largest artifact collection of the Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum consists of amphoras.

Amphoras are usually two-handled, pointed-bottomed jugs. The word is derived from the Greek words "amphi" (on both sides) and "phoreus" (carrier). In ancient trade, amphoras were used to transport and store wine, olive oil and dry foods.

Did you know these?

In ancient times, grape harvest in Anatolia was celebrated with festivities and songs. Wines were prepared and kept in large jars in the cellar. Amphoras were used to ripen the wines, and these amphorae were closed with stoppers to preserve their quality.

Carian Princess Hall

Baltalı Kule, located adjacent to the cross vault, is the "Queen Island" hall and displays sarcophagi and finds found during a foundation excavation in Bodrum.

In the Carian Princess Island Exhibition hall, a video film of the discovery of the finds, genealogy-chronology, decor and furniture based on the assembly hall of the period, and a plaster copy of the Ada head taken from Priene to the British Museum can be seen. There is a special entrance fee for this exhibition.

English Tower

The English Tower is located in the northeast corner of Bodrum Castle and its foundations sit on the bedrock. The three-storey tower has two entrances: in the west, outside the city walls and in the north. The western entrance opens to the middle floor, and this section is currently used as the glass laboratory of the museum.

Eastern Roman Shipwreck

The Gothic style building on the right in the courtyard is the chapel of the knights. This chapel is among the structures completed first with the start of the castle construction (1402-1437). It was repaired by Spanish knights between 1519 and 1520, and its plan and decorations reflect Spanish influence. The front facade of the chapel is equipped with a very detailed decoration. The entrance is provided by a large door in the middle, and there are two small doors on the sides. There are arched windows just above the side doors. On the middle door, two windows on top of each other and details decorated with floral motifs are beautiful examples of the Gothic style. There is an acroter decoration at the top.

Turkish Bath Exhibition

The Turkish bath in Bodrum Castle was restored and opened to visitors in 1991. There is a small fountain in the courtyard of the bath, and the fountain is surrounded by lemon trees, which are often seen in traditional bath gardens. In the courtyard, toilet stones collected from Bodrum and its surroundings, 19th-century toilets and chamber pots used from ancient times to the present are exhibited.

Glass Wreck Hall

The ship that crashed into the rocks and sank in the small bay called Serçe Harbor near Marmaris is known as the Glass Wreck, which draws attention with its finds. The wreck, at a depth of 32 meters, was built by Prof. between 1977 and 1979. Dr. It was excavated by George Bass and was unearthed largely intact. The glass ingots that the ship was loaded with show that the goods of a merchant trading between the Islamic and Byzantine states were carried on the ship. While scrap glass was loaded onto the ship to be remelted, new glass products were sold at the ports. Among the finds unearthed from the shipwreck are various objects such as weights from the Early Islamic period, a sword, vessels with strainers, and the checkers played by the ship's personnel. Therefore, based on the variety of finds and dating methods, the shipwreck is generally dated to the 11th century, and more specifically to approximately 1025.

German Tower

The German Tower is arranged in a way that resembles medieval knightly life, like the English Tower. Anchors are exhibited in the upper courtyard in front of the German Tower. The tower was used as a meeting hall and dining room and there is a double-headed eagle figure on it. It is also thought that the German Tower was used as a hospital for a while.

Coin and Jewelery Hall

The vaulted building used as the Coin and Jewelery Hall is located on the lower floor of the Italian Tower. It is a small room with a rectangular plan. In the exhibition, coins used in the region, from the smallest coins (tetratemorion) to the largest coins (tetradrachms), are exhibited with their front and back sides in order of weight. In another display case, B.C. VI. century BC II. The purchasing power of the tetradrachm up to the century is shown.

Glass Hall

As we walk up from the Amphora park, we see the bell on the left, which belongs to a Greek-Orthodox church and has the date 1906 on it. At the door next to the bell, M.S. XI. The boat belonging to the Byzantine shipwreck, unearthed during the Serçe Harbor Excavation in the 19th century, is on display. The building directly opposite is used as a glass hall. There are niches on the walls of this rectangular planned and truncated vaulted building. Hall, B.C. XIV. century and A.D. XI. It exhibits various glass works dating back to the 19th century. In the first window on the right, B.C. XIV. There are Mycenaean glass bead strings dating back to the 16th century and processed glass ingots from the same period unearthed from the Kaş Uluburun Shipwreck. In the later display cases, there are glass finds obtained during excavations in ancient cities such as Stratonikeia and Kaunos. A large part of the hall, M.S. XI. It consists of the glass collection of the Serçe Harbor Shipwreck, dating back to the 19th century. An aquarium was placed in one of the niches in this hall to show how underwater archaeological excavations were carried out.

Hidden Museum Serpent Tower

The building, called the Spanish Tower or "Snake Tower" due to the snake relief next to the lower floor entrance, hosts an area where objects such as ancient medical instruments, mortars and pestles used in medicine are exhibited. Inside the tower, there are many objects related to birth, life and death. In addition to medical materials, the exhibition also includes figures symbolizing women's fertility, the God Priapus, the Double Phallus relief, and sexually themed reliefs showing Tellus Mater, the goddess of marriage and nature, with Eros in her hand.

Uluburun Wreck

There is an exact replica of the shipwreck in the Uluburun Exhibition, located in the second and third sections of the Bronze Age Shipwrecks hall. Uluburun shipwreck, located off the coast of Kuşadası and defined as the "oldest known shipwreck in the world", is the most important and special exhibition of the Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum.

Dungeon

After watching the mass graves of the Forsas in the dungeon, you can see toilets from the Ottoman period on the left. When we follow the road north, we reach the inner moat surrounded by thick city walls. There are two towers here. These are the Gatineau and Caretto towers. Caretto Tower was built in the name of the great Master Fabrico Del Caretto (1513-1521). The Gatineau Tower was built by Jacques Gatineau, one of the tower commanders (1512-1514). The Gatineau tower was used as a dungeon (torture chamber) between 1513 and 1522, after the cannon ports were closed and the air shafts were blocked. There are three coats of arms on the outer gate of this tower. The coat of arms in the middle belongs to the great Master Emery d'Amboise (1503-1512). The arms on the sides belong to Jacques Gatineau, the commander who had the tower built. There are 23 steps to go down to the dungeon. "INDE DEUS ABEST" is written in Latin on the inner door. This text means “The Place Where God Is Not Found”. When you enter the dungeon, you can watch the torture room from the balcony in front of the door. There are two cells (old cannon embrasures) inside the left and right walls. There is an air chimney on each cell. The first chimney on the left is covered with a coat of arms. In the northwest corner of the room, a gallows pit, a coffin in front of the pit, a shackled cannonball on the floor, shackled handcuffs on the wall and a gallows cage hanging from the ceiling can be seen. The mannequin, prison keeper and prisoners here attract attention with their light effects.

Command Tower

This tower, which was destroyed during the French attack in 1915, was restored and opened to visitors in memory of Captain İbrahim Nezihi, who protected Bodrum from French occupation in those days and was martyred in Kocatepe when the Great Offensive began on August 26, 1922. The exhibition in the tower provides us with the opportunity to get to know the unsung heroes and the period in the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey.

Solitaire Glass Wreck

Tektaş Burnu Shipwreck is exhibited in two halls under the 47.50 meter high French Tower, one of the most magnificent towers of Bodrum Castle. The shipwreck, located near Çeşme, Sığacık, was dated to the 5th century, when Herodotus lived. Many of the more than 200 amphorae found in the shipwreck are exhibited in this hall in good condition. Another sea bream replica and the upper part of the anchor coming out of the shipwreck, the "breasted sea bream", can be seen here.

Bodrum castle

Bodrum Castle, “St. It was built between 1406 and 1523 as the "Castle of the Knights of St. Jean". Located in the rocky area between two harbours, it was an island in ancient times and later became a peninsula by connecting to the city. Planned as a square, the castle was built with dimensions of 180 meters by 185 meters.

There are towers bearing the names of different countries in the inner castle. The highest tower in the castle is the French Tower, which is 47.50 meters above sea level. Other towers are listed as the Italian Tower, German Tower, Yılanlı Tower and English Tower.

Passing through Seven Gates

The parts of the castle other than the eastern wall were reinforced with double body walls. The inner castle is reached through seven gates and there are coats of arms on the gates. Crosses, flat or horizontal bands, dragon and lion figures were used in these coats of arms. Six of the 14 cisterns in the inner castle belong to the chapel.

The most striking parts of Bodrum Castle include the castle blockhouse, the water moat between the double walls, the suspension bridge, the control tower and the II. There is Mahmut's signature. When the castle was used as a prison at the end of the 1st century, a bath structure was added and it gained Ottoman features.

Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum, which received "Special Praise" in the European Museum of the Year Competition in 1995, is also located within the castle. However, due to restoration, only Uluburun and Batik sections are currently open to visitors. Various artifacts are exhibited in the areas of the castle, which is built on a land of 33.5 decares.

Bodrum Underwater Archeology Museum Entrance Fee

The entrance ticket to the museum is 150 TL for 1 adult. You can visit every day of the week between 08:30 and 23:00. However, we recommend that you purchase a Museum Card. So you can visit all museums for free throughout the year.

While You're At It

You should definitely visit Halicarnassus, the closest neighbor of Bodrum Castle. The ancient city of Halicarnassus developed on a small settlement called Zephyria and grew under the influence of different civilizations such as the Aeolians, Ionians and Dorians. However, the most brilliant period of Halicarnassus coincides with the period of Mausollos, the satrap of Caria. Mausolus surrounded the city with walls and organized it in accordance with Hellenic traditions.

Halicarnassus was known as a city without earthquake risk during the Roman period and is also known as the birthplace of the famous historian Herodotus. After the Menteşe Turks captured the region in 1291, Bodrum remained within the borders of the Menteşe sanjak in 1424.

You can visit the Muğla Museums page to discover the historical and cultural riches of Halicarnassus. On this page, you can discover many more historical places and museums to visit in Muğla.