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Bodrum

Bodrum is a port city in Muğla Province, southwestern Turkey, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Its population was 35,795 at the 2012 census, with a total of 136,317 inhabitants residing within the district's borders. Known in ancient times as Halicarnassus, the city was once home to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, also known as the tomb of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The city was founded by Dorian Greeks. It later fell under Persian rule and became the capital city of the satrapy of Caria. Mausolus ruled Caria from here, and after his death in 353 BC, his wife Artemisia built a tomb, called the Mausoleum, for him. Macedonian forces laid siege to the city and captured it in 334 BC. After Alexander's death, the city passed to successive Hellenistic rulers and was briefly an independent kingdom until 129 BC, when it came under Roman rule. A series of natural disasters and repeated pirate attacks wreaked havoc on the area, and the city lost its importance by the time of the Byzantine era. The Knights Hospitaller arrived in 1402 and used the remains of the Mausoleum as a quarry to build Bodrum Castle. The castle and its town became known as Petronium, whence the modern name Bodrum. After the conquest of Rhodes by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1522, the town fell under Ottoman control as the Knights Hospitaller relocated to Europe.

By the 20th century, the city's economy was mainly based on fishing and sponge diving, but tourism has become the main industry in Bodrum since the late 20th century. The abundance of visitors has also contributed to Bodrum's retail and service industry. Milas–Bodrum Airport and Kos International Airport are the main airports that serve the city. The port has ferries to other nearby Turkish and Greek ports and islands, Kos being the most important. Most of the public transportation in the city is based on local share taxis and buses.

Etymology

The modern name Bodrum derives from the town's medieval name Petronium, which has its roots in the Hospitaller Castle of St. Peter (see history).

In classical antiquity, Bodrum was known as Halicarnassus (Ancient Greek: Ἁλικαρνασσός, Turkish: Halikarnas), a major city in ancient Caria. The suffix -ᾱσσός (-assos) of Greek Ἁλικαρνᾱσσός is indicative of a substrate toponym, meaning that an original non-Greek name influenced or established the place's name. It has been proposed that the -καρνᾱσσός (-carnassos) part is cognate with Luwian word "ha+ra/i-na-sà", which means fortress. If so, the city's ancient name was probably borrowed from Carian, a Luwic language native to pre-Greek Western Anatolia. The Carian name for Halicarnassus has been tentatively identified with 𐊠𐊣𐊫𐊰 𐊴𐊠𐊥𐊵𐊫𐊰 (alos k̂arnos) in inscriptions.

History

Ancient era

Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. Halicarnassus was founded by Dorian Greeks, and the figures on its coins, such as the head of Medusa, Athena, Poseidon, and the trident, support the statement that the mother cities were Troezen and Argos. The inhabitants appear to have accepted Anthes, a son of Poseidon, as their legendary founder, as mentioned by Strabo, and were proud of the title Antheadae. The Carian name for Halicarnassus has been tentatively identified with Alosδkarnosδ in inscriptions.

In an early period, Halicarnassus was a member of the Doric Hexapolis, which included Kos, Cnidus, Lindos, Kameiros, and Ialysus; but it was expelled from the league when one of its citizens, Agasicles, took home the prize tripod that he had won in the Triopian games instead of dedicating it according to custom to the Triopian Apollo. In the early 5th century, Halicarnassus was under the sway of Artemisia I of Caria (also known as Artemesia of Halicarnassus, who made herself famous as a naval commander at the battle of Salamis. Little is known of Pisindalis, her son and successor; but Lygdamis, the tyrant of Halicarnassus, who next attained power, is notorious for having the poet Panyasis put to death and forcing Herodotus, possibly the most well-known Halicarnassian, to leave his native city (c. 457 BC).

Persian rule

he city later fell under Persian rule. Under the Persians, it was the capital city of the satrapy of Caria, the region that long afterward constituted its hinterland and of which it was the principal port. Its strategic location ensured that the city enjoyed considerable autonomy. Archaeological evidence from the period, such as the recently discovered Salmakis (Kaplankalesi) Inscription, now in Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, attests to the particular pride its inhabitants had developed.

Mausolus ruled Caria from here, nominally on behalf of the Persians but practically independently, for much of his reign from 377 to 353 BC. When he died in 353 BC, Artemisia II of Caria, who was both his sister and his widow, employed the ancient Greek architects Satyros, Pythis, and the sculptors Bryaxis, Scopas, Leochares, and Timotheus to build a monument and a tomb for him. The word "mausoleum" derives from the structure of this tomb. It was a temple-like structure decorated with reliefs and statuary on a massive base. Today only the foundations and a few pieces of sculpture remain.

Hellenistic and Roman periods

Alexander the Great laid siege to the city after his arrival in the Carian lands and, together with his ally, Queen Ada of Caria, captured it after fighting in 334 BC. After Alexander's death, the rule of the city passed to Antigonus I (311 BC), Lysimachus (after 301 BC), and the Ptolemies (281–197 BC) and was briefly an independent kingdom until 129 BC, when it came under Roman rule. A series of earthquakes destroyed much of the city, as well as the great Mausoleum, while repeated pirate attacks from the Mediterranean wreaked further havoc on the area. By the time of the early Christian Byzantine era, when Halicarnassus was an important bishopric, there was little left of the shining city of Mausoluos.

Medieval era

Crusader Knights arrived in 1402 and used the remains of the Mausoleum as a quarry to build the still impressively standing Bodrum Castle (Castle of Saint Peter), a well-preserved example of late Crusader architecture in the eastern Mediterranean. The Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St. John) were given permission to build it by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed I after Tamerlane destroyed their previous fortress in İzmir's inner bay. The castle and its town became known as Petronium, whence the modern name Bodrum.^{[citation needed]}

In 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent conquered the base of the Crusader knights on the island of Rhodes, who then relocated first briefly to Sicily and later permanently to Malta, leaving the Castle of Saint Peter and Bodrum to the Ottoman Empire.

Modern era

Bodrum was a quiet town of fishermen and sponge divers until the early 20th century. From 1867 until 1922, it was part of the Aidin Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. In her book Bodrum, Fatma Mansur points out that the presence of a large community of bilingual Cretan Turks, coupled with the conditions of free trade and access to the southern Dodecanese islands until 1935, made the town less provincial. The fact that traditional agriculture was not a very rewarding activity in the rather dry peninsula also prevented the formation of a class of large landowners. Bodrum has no notable history of political or religious extremism. A first nucleus of intellectuals started to form after the 1950s around the writer Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, who first came here in exile two decades previously and was charmed by the town to the point of adopting the pen name Halikarnas Balıkçısı ('The Fisherman of Halicarnassus').

Climate

Bodrum has a hot summer Mediterranean climate (Csa in the Köppen climate classification and Cshl in the Trewartha climate classification). The average temperature is around 15 °C (59 °F) in winter and 34 °C (93 °F) in summer, with many sunny spells. Summers are very hot and mostly sunny, and winters are mild and humid.

Main sights

The Castle of St. Peter, also known as Bodrum Castle, is one of the main attractions of the peninsula. The castle was built by the Knights Hospitaller during the 15th century, and the walls of the fortification contain pieces of the ruins of the Mausoleum, which was used as a source of construction materials. The Castle of Bodrum retains its original design and character of the Knights' period and reflects Gothic architecture. It also contains the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, a museum established by the Turkish government in 1962 to host the underwater discoveries of ancient shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea. In 2016, the castle was included in the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey. The castle has been under renovation since 2017, and only some parts of it are accessible to visitors.

Built in the fourth century BC, the ruins of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus are also among the main sights in Bodrum. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a tomb designed by Greek architects and built for Mausolus, a satrap of the Persian Empire, and his sister-wife Artemisia II of Caria. The structure was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,. By the 12th century CE, the structure had largely been destroyed.^[25][26][27] Today, the ruins of the tomb continue to attract both domestic and international tourists.It is planned to turn the ruins into an open-air museum.

Besides the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, other museums are also located on the peninsula. Zeki Müren Art Museum is dedicated to Turkish classical musician Zeki Müren. After his death, the house in Bodrum where he lived during the later years of his life was transformed into the Zeki Müren Art Museum by order of the Ministry of Culture and was opened to the public on June 8, 2000. Bodrum Maritime Museum is another museum dedicated to the classification, exhibition, restoration, conservation, storage, and safekeeping of historical documents, works, and objects that are important to the city's maritime history. Bodrum City Museum is a minor museum in the city center that presents the general history of the Bodrum peninsula.