Aydos Castle

Aydos Castle, locally known as Aydos Kalesi, lies on a hill above the town of Sultanbeyli, in the province of Istanbul in Turkey.

Aydos Castle was built, on a hill below Mount Aydos, by the Byzantines, probably during the late 11th or 12th century. It was probably built as part of a defensive network of castles all through Anatolia against the Turks after the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

In the early 14th century the Ottomans were seizing more and more Byzantine territory on the Kocaeli peninsula and finally Aydos became a border castle which prompted new construction activity. However, in 1328 the castle was taken by the military commander Abdurrahman Gazi for the Ottoman Sultan Orhan Gazi.

Legend has it that the daughter of the Byzantine lord of Aydos Castle had a dream in which a handsome man rescued her after which she fell in love with that man. Later, when the Ottomans besieged the castle, she recognized Abdurrahman as the man of her dreams. She then sent him a letter in which she asked him to feign a retreat but to return during the night and that she would let him inside the castle. Thus happened and so the Ottomans took the castle.

After the conquest Abdurrahman settled in the castle and started to raid and conquer Byzantine possessions in Üsküdar, on the opposite shore of Constantinople. Soon however the military importance of Aydos Castle disappeared and the castle was abandoned.

The castle has an oval ground plan with a double set of walls and completely encompasses the top of the partially flattened hill. Its main defenses were aimed at its western end. In recent years Aydos Castle was archaeologically excavated and consolidated.

At present the castle ruin can not be visited. It is guarded by a watchman. A nice ruin.

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