The round corner tower of Kyrenia's city walls (1211-1232)

Abstract

A circular stone construction is still visible today within in the old city of Kyrenia, in Northern Cyprus. As far as we know the burg of Kyrenia was already fortified in Byzantine times but during the Longobard war, before the seize of the city, Frederick II’s party, under the direction of captain Philippo Genardo, improved the defences of the city: it is in this phase that we hypothesise the construction of the round south west corner tower of the city walls of Kyrenia. During the rule of Frederick II Hohenstaufen (1211-1250) there was a revolution in the design of city walls, the angular towers migrated toward the outside. In this time the so called “systéme Philippien” was improved introducing cylindrical corner towers for the city fortifications. Frederick was in Cyprus in 1228, during this time it is documented that his party built new fortifications in Cherines (Kyrenia). The tower includes some spolia apparently of Roman origin. The Venetians in the XVI century demolished the city walls and restored the Castle concentrating therein their defensive system. The remaining elements of the older defensive system include two other towers still visible today in the urban tissue of the city. It is possible therefore to reconstruct the complete perimeter of the city walls of Kyrenia overlapping data from the survey, the modern cadastre and the ancient city plans. The paper includes the digital survey of the round tower and the historical research on the tower ad Kyrenia’s defensive system in the middle ages.