A Brief History of the Maiden's Tower

It is known that a customs point was established in 410 BC on the islet where the Maiden's Tower is located today, and a tower was built in order to control the ships coming from the Black Sea and collect taxes.

In the 12th century, a defense tower was built on the islet by the Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. A chain was stretched between this tower and a tower located next to the Mangana Monastery in Sarayburnu. So, entry and exit to the Bosphorus were under control.

After the conquest of Istanbul, Fatih Sultan Mehmet had a new castle built here. A sentry unit was placed in the castle, and every evening after nightfall and at dawn, the Janissary Band started to play in the tower. It has become a tradition to shoot cannons from the Maiden's Tower during holidays and during the sultans' visits to the seaside palaces when they ascend to the throne.

In the 18th century, a lighthouse was placed in the northern part of the wooden tower by Grand Vizier of Sultan Ahmed III, Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha, to show the way to ships coming from the Black Sea and Marmara at night. From this date on, the tower began to serve as a lighthouse, not a castle anymore.

Between 1830 and 1831, the tower was converted into a quarantine hospital so that the cholera epidemic would not spread to the city. During the plague epidemic in which thirty thousand people died between 1836-1837, some of the patients were isolated in the hospital established here, and the spread of the epidemic was prevented by quarantine.

The French company added a lantern to the tower, which was transferred to the Lighthouses Administration in 1857. In 1926, when it was transferred to the Istanbul Port Authority, it was used as a gas tank as well as a lighthouse.

Since 1959, the Maiden's Tower has been used as a radar station for a while. For the safety of maritime transport, the tower was illuminated in the evenings and a fog whistle sounded in foggy weather. In addition, since the visibility of the Harem and Harbor pilotage stations is short, the duty of notifying and controlling all ships passing through the Bosphorus, 24 hours a day, until 1983 was carried out by 2 officers of the Maritime Administration.

In 1964, the Maiden's Tower was used as a surveillance and radar station under the Ministry of National Defense. It has been transferred to Turkish Marine and Port Management since 1983. For a period, cyanide was stored in the tower. With the initiative of Üsküdar Municipality to plan the building as a touristic facility, after the decision taken by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Council in 1992, the cyanide was moved to a warehouse in Tuzla.

In 1992, the tower was used by poets for a period and was called the "Poetry Republic". In 1994, it was transferred from the Ministry of Transport to the Naval Forces Command. After the extensive restoration process between 1995-2000, it was leased to a private enterprise for touristic purposes.

The Maiden's Tower was transferred to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2020 and was opened to visitors as a monument in 2023 after extensive restoration works that started in 2021. At the same time, the Maiden's Tower was turned into a subordinate unit of the Galata Tower Museum Directorate, which was newly established by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and thus two important symbols of Istanbul gained the identity of the Museum.