History of Bodrum – Ancient Halicarnassos
History of Bodrum. The first recorded settlers in Bodrum region were the Carians and the harbor area was colonized by Dorian Greeks as of the 7th century BC. The city later fell under Persian rule. Under the Persians, it was the capital city of the satrapy of Caria. This region had since long 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. This is today in Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, attest to the particular pride its inhabitants had developed.. A famous native was Herodotus, the Greek historian. Surviving substructures and ruins of the Mausoleum of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, in Halicarnassus.
Mausolus ruled Caria from here, nominally on behalf of the Persians and independent in practical terms for much of his reign between 377 to 353 BC. When he died, Artemisia II of Caria, who was both his sister and his widow, employed the ancient Greek architects Satyros and Pythis, and the four sculptors Bryaxis, Scopas, Leochares and Timotheus to build a monument, as well as 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. It stood for 1700 years and was finally destroyed by earthquakes. Today only the foundations and a few pieces of sculpture remain.
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great laid siege to the city after his arrival in Carian lands and, together with his ally, the queen Ada of Caria, captured it after heavy fighting. Julian of Halicarnassus was bishop in the early 6th century. From the middle of the 6th century BC on, Halicarnassus was governed by the Persians.
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). Bodum Castle is a well-preserved example of the late Crusader architecture in the east Mediterranean. Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St. John) were given the permission to build it by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed I, after Tamerlane had destroyed their previous fortress located in Izmir’s inner bay. The castle and its town became known as Petronium, whence the modern name Bodrum derives.
Suleiman the Magnificent
In 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent conquered the base of the Crusader knights on the island of Rhodes. They then relocated first briefly to Sicily and later permanently to Malta, leaving the Castle of Saint Peter and Bodrum to the Ottoman Empire. Bodrum was a quiet town of fishermen and sponge divers until the mid-20th century; although, as Mansur points out, the presence of a large community of bilingual Cretan Turks saved it from utter provincialism; it was coupled with the conditions of free trade and access with the islands of the Southern Dodecanese until 1935 .
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 either. A first nucleus of intellectuals started to form after the 1950s around the writer Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, who had first come here in exile two decades before and was charmed by the town to the point of adopting the pen name Halikarnas Balıkçısı (‘The Fisherman of Halicarnassus’).
