Ancient Halicarnassus: The Mausoleum, Ancient Theatre and Myndos Gate

In 377 BC, the Carian ruler Mausolus (formally a satrap of the Persian Empire, though ruling as an independent Hellenistic king) moved his capital to the coastal port of Halicarnassus, surrounding it with a seven-kilometre fortified wall, a secret royal naval arsenal and monumental marble terraces. Although medieval builders reused much of its stone in Bodrum Castle, three key classical sites lie within a fifteen-minute walk or five-minute taxi hop of the harbour.

1. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Halikarnas Mozolesi, Turgutreis Caddesi)

Ten minutes' walk uphill from the Marina sits the open-air archaeological garden of the Mausoleum, built between 353 and 350 BC by Mausolus's sister-wife Queen Artemisia II and designed by Greek architects Satyros and Pythius. Rising 45 metres high in three tiers, a massive podium, an Ionic colonnade of 36 columns and a 24-step pyramid crowned by a marble four-horse chariot, and sculpted by the four greatest masters of the age (Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheos), the tomb was so celebrated as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that Roman writers began calling any grand tomb a mausoleum. While the superstructure collapsed in medieval earthquakes, you can walk down the rock-cut stairs to the royal burial chamber platform, inspect the ancient subterranean drainage galleries, view plaster casts and surviving fragments of the Amazonomachy (Battle of the Greeks and Amazons) frieze in the shaded garden pavilion, and study the architectural scale model showing how the wonder looked in 350 BC.

2. The Ancient Theatre of Halicarnassus (On the Hillside of Göktepe)

Directly above the Mausoleum along the main Bodrum, Gümbet road (with free or modest ticketed admission right from the roadside lay-by), the Ancient Theatre was carved into the limestone slope during the reign of King Mausolus in the 4th century BC and expanded in the Roman era to seat 10,000 spectators. Climb to the top rows of the cavea in the late afternoon: the stone stage frames a postcard panorama straight down over the whitewashed houses of Bodrum, the Castle of St Peter and the Greek island of Kos across the water.

3. The Myndos Gate (Myndos Kapısı, 1.5 km west of the Marina)

At the western entrance to ancient Halicarnassus stand the monumental ashlar limestone towers and defensive moat of the Myndos Gate (free, open 24/7). This is the exact spot where Alexander the Great's army fought its bloodiest battle during the Siege of Halicarnassus in the autumn of 334 BC, when hundreds of Macedonian soldiers fell into the rock-cut defensive trench in the dark.