Guide
The shore castle at Ahlat rises on the edge of Lake Van, south of the ruins of the old town. The Ministry's page gives two things about its origin without reconciling them: that it belongs to the Urartian period, and that the castle, destroyed in 1224, was rebuilt in 1556 by Suleiman the Magnificent. The rebuilding is described in some detail: returning from his Iranian campaign, Suleiman came to Ahlat, visited the graves of all his forebears, and ordered Zal Pasha and Mimar Sinan to build a sound castle so that Ahlat should prosper, and it was built to the description he gave.
The castle is quadrangular, three thousand paces round, with walls that are not especially high and thirteen towers; its ditch is not deep but its walls are wide and solid. On the side facing the lake is a triple iron gate. The sources record that it held 350 houses, a mosque, a bath, a han and some twenty shops. Today only the castle itself stands, though remains of the buildings inside it can be found. Two of Ahlat's important historic buildings, the İskender Pasha Mosque and the Kadı Mahmut Mosque, are within the walls, along with examples of domestic building such as the drum house and a bath.
