Mamure Castle

Mamure Castle rises right beside the sea, six kilometres east of Anamur in the province of Mersin, and is counted among the most intact Turkish castles on the Mediterranean coast. It is on Turkey's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage. Like many Anatolian fortresses it stands on far older foundations, though nobody knows exactly who built them.

The Romans used the site to protect trade routes and to watch over merchant ships, and it was enlarged in the Byzantine and Crusader periods. The Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubat took it in 1228. After Seljuk power faded it came under Christian control before Karamanoğlu Mahmut Bey captured it. In 1450 Sultan İbrahim of the Karamanoğulları rebuilt it and gave it the name Mamure.

The plan has three parts: an eastern inner courtyard set off by high walls, an outer castle to the west, and an inner keep built on rock to the south. Inside are thirty-nine towers, cisterns, a mosque and a bathhouse, all ringed by a ten-metre-wide defensive moat. Note that the entrance visitors use today is not the original one, which lies between two square towers to the north of the inner courtyard.