Eğirdir Castle is a castle in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

It is in Eğirdir ilçe (district) of Isparta Province. Located at is on an isthmus of

Eğirdir Lake Eğirdir is a town and district of Isparta Province in the Mediterranean region of Turkey. History The town and the lake were formerly called ''Eğridir'', a Turkish pronunciation and possible appropriation of the town's old Greek name Akrotori. ...

. There is no written account of the construction date of the castle. According to local tradition it may be as old as the

Lydian Kingdom Lydia ( Lydian: ‎𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, ''Śfarda''; Aramaic: ''Lydia''; el, Λυδία, ''Lȳdíā''; tr, Lidya) was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish prov ...

(BC 6-7 centuries) Eğirdir Municipality page
/ref> But judging from the masonry it was constructed or reconstructed during the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

or the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

eras. In the early 14th century Eğirdir was the capital of the

Anatolian beylik Anatolian beyliks ( tr, Anadolu beylikleri, Ottoman Turkish: ''Tavâif-i mülûk'', ''Beylik'' ) were small principalities (or petty kingdoms) in Anatolia governed by beys, the first of which were founded at the end of the 11th century. A secon ...

of Hamidids. According to the inscription of the castle, it was restored by

Dündar of Hamidoğlu Dündar Bey (conventionally called Falakuddin Dündar bin Ilyas bin Hamit) was the founder of Hamidoğlu Beylik, an Anatolian beylik in the 14th century. (Anatolia is the Asiatic part of Turkey). His father was İlyas Bey. In the 13th century, ...

in 1307. However, during the campaign of

Timur Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Kür ...

in 1402, it was partially ruined. During the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

era the castle was a small military post. The castle was primarily built against the attacks from the lake and it is only about high. Because of the urban settlement on the ruins, the size of the original castle is not known Article by Kenan Bilici Art History periodical
/ref> But the area of the inner castle is about .

References

{{Castles in Turkey History of Isparta Province Eğirdir District Castles in Turkey