Guide
When Manisa Castle was built is not known; its past is thought to reach back to the Hellenistic period, and it is estimated to have been damaged in the earthquake of AD 17.
The castle has two parts, an inner and an outer. The inner castle, built in 1222 in the reign of John III, is also called the Sandık Kale — the box castle — because of its five-sided plan. The outer circuit ran four and a half kilometres and held thirteen towers and seven gates; the inner castle had seven towers and one gate. Most of the walls have now fallen.
The walls were strengthened in the fourteenth century. The Saruhanid principality, which took the city in 1313, built the Fetih Mescidi within them. The first repair of the Turkish period came in 1553, and in 1657 the soldiers of the castle were transferred to the Sancakburnu castle built at İzmir.
