Bodrum City Guide

Museum of Underwater Archaeology, Bodrum

In 1962 the Turkish Government decided to turn the castle into a museum for the underwater discoveries of ancient shipwrecks in the Aegean Sea. This has become the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology, with a collection of amphoras, ancient glass, bronze, clay, and iron items.

It is the biggest museum of its kind devoted to underwater archaeology.[citation needed] Most of its collection dates from underwater excavations carried out by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) after 1960.

These excavations were performed on several shipwrecks:
Finike-Gelidonya shipwreck (12th century BC): 1958–1959; first underwater excavation in Turkey
Bodrum-Yassiada shipwreck (Byzantine, 7th century AD): 1961–1964; Roman merchant vessel with 900 amphoras
Bodrum -Yassiada shipwreck (Late Roman, 4th century AD)
Bodrum-Yassiada shipwreck (Ottoman, 16th century AD) (dated by a 16th-century four-real silver coin from Seville (Philip II) )
Ṣeytan Deresi shipwreck (16th century BC)
Serçe Limanı Shipwreck (glass, 11th century AD): 1977; collection of Islamic glassware
Marmaris-Serçe harbour shipwreck (Hellenistic, 3rd BC)
Kaṣ-Uluburun shipwreck (14th century 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
Tektaṣ Burnu Classical Greek shipwreck (5th century BC): 1999-2001
The former chapel houses an exhibition of vases and amphoras form the Mycenaean age (14th to 12th centuries BC) and findings from the Bronze Age (around 2500 BC). The commercial amphoras give a historical overview of the development of amphoras and their varied uses.

The Italian Tower houses a collection spanning many centuries in the Coin and Jewelry Hall. Another exhibition room is devoted exclusively to the tomb of a Carian princess, who died between 360 and 325 BC. The collection of ancient glass objects is one of the four largest ancient glass collections in the world.

Finally, two ancient shipwrecks have been reconstructed: the Fatımi ship, sunk in 1077 AD, and the large Uluburun Shipwreck from the 14th century BC.

A garden inside the castle is a collection of almost every plant and tree of the Mediterranean region, including both the myrtle, and the plane tree.

Turquoise and amber peacocks parade under flowering trees and bushes. From the towers it is possible to see the entire city as well as some of the neighboring bays.