Payas Castle

Payas Castle, locally known as Payas Kalesi, lies in the town of the same name, in the province of Hatay in Turkey.

There is little information about any pre-Ottoman settlement at Payas. In the 2nd half of the 16th century the Ottomans settled Payas to make it a complementary port to Ayas, on the other side of the Gulf of Alexandretta. They built 2 fortifications here under the patronage of the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha; the Cin Tower which guarded the harbor and the larger Payas Castle which, situated a bit more inland, protected a complex called a bedesten formed by a mosque, a bazaar and a madrasa. The tower and the castle are only about 700 meters apart.

Payas remained a thriving trading center until the mid-19th century when considerable damage was inflicted on the site by the troops of Kücük Ali.

The castle has a roughly pentagonal plan, a single circuit wall with 7 towers and a gate tower and is surrounded by a deep dry moat whose vertical sides are faced with masonry. The only entrance into the castle is the gate in the east wall which is protected by a barbican.

In recent years Payas Castle and the bedesten were restored. The very nice bedesten is now fully operational and can freely be visited. The interior of the castle however was closed off when I visited, too bad. I don't know if it is ever open for visits. A beautiful castle which, together with the bedesten and the nearby Cin Tower, makes for a great visit of Payas, even if it is closed.

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