Castle of St Peter, Bodrum - Day 8

Tuesday, June 5, 2012
After a good nights rest we ate breakfast at 7 on the rooftop terrace.  We then met at the hotel lobby at 8:15 to gather and head off for a walk to the Museum of Underwater Archeology in the Castle of St Peter.  The Knights Hospitaller (of St John) began construction of the castle in 1402.  It was very well maintained and contained many coats of arms.

This castle was built using the stones from the Temple of Halicarnassus (which was located on a hill in view of the castle)  which was destroyed by an earthquake in the middle ages.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and 

sister.This is where we get the word Mausoleum from.

It was one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.

The castle wall meets the sea.

Coat of Arms at the entrance.

View of the bay and of Bodrum.

Roman Governor - Carlerilius

First Governor of Turkey - Mehmet

Sarcophagus for ashes

Peacock in the castle.

Cannon ready. 

The Castle Tower is the largest building built by the English outside of England.  This window is next to a seating area in a very large and ornate dining room.  The Castle Room is 3 stories tall.

The Castle also houses the Underwater Archeology Museum which contains the oldest excavated shipwreck in the world from 14BC.  The excavation was conducted by George Bass and Texas A&M. The museum had a short film showing the diving expedition, there were many artifacts including glass, ceramics, jewelry, bronze tools.  The ship was an Egyptian vessel that was shipwrecked in the Aegean.

It is the biggest museum of its kind devoted to underwater archaeology and boasts the largest collection of anaphora in the world.

One such shipwreck represented was Kaṣ-Uluburun shipwreck (14th c. BC) : 1982 - 1995; 10 tons of Cypriot copper ingots; one ton of pure tin ingots; 150 glass ingots; manufactured goods; Mycenaean pottery; Egyptian seals (with a seal of queen Nefertiti) and jewelry.

^]

A model of one of the shipwrecked boats.

Wooden anchor with iron weights in the bottom of the cross bar.

How anaphora (pointy bottom jugs) were packed.

A glass ingot from the 14th century BC

Gold death masks

We walked back to the hotel to pack our bags and left Bodrum at 10am.  We are taking a 7 hour trip from Bodrum to Kas.  We took a mountainous trek on the bus along a route that had a lot of construction.  We made our first stop a few hoursat a gas station.  The gas stations in Turkey are quite nice with self-service restaurants and shops.  Canvas shoes and duffle bag were the buying rage at the stop.

We stopped an hour later for lunch at a road side restaurant to refuel ourselves.  

Mehmet checking out the food.

Mehmet taking our order, the raising of the hands part is next to indicate shish or meatballs, or lamb.

The shish grill.

To the far right was the 

marble table and the oven where the pied (form of pizza) was rolled out and baked. YUM.

We then continued on the bus with wifi service and here I was worried about what type of Internet service we would have. We were hugging the road along the beautiful Mediterranean from Kas to a village named Ucagiz.  This is where we had to say goodbye to our driver as we are taking a boat to Kale Village where we will be staying for 3 nights.