Qualla: Paphos Castle

Paphos Castle: Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nikodem Nijaki, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sforza was a Spanish mercenary, fierce in temperament and unyielding in his post, and in August 1570 he refused to abandon the modest stone tower at the western end of Paphos harbor when most other Cypriot garrisons cut their losses and ran. The Ottoman forces had landed in their thousands. Sixteen days of artillery exchanges later, the Castle of Paphos lay in rubble, but Sforza had not surrendered it. The Ottomans took the wreckage and rebuilt it the way they had rebuilt every other castle on Cyprus, and in 1592 the Turkish governor Ahmed Pasha hung a white marble slab above the entrance recording the work. The slab is still there. So is the castle, smaller than its history would suggest, holding down one corner of a harbor that has seen Byzantines, Lusignans, Genoese, Mamluks, Venetians, Ottomans, British, and now the cruise tourists of the European Union.

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Image: Nikodem Nijaki | CC BY-SA 3.0

Paphos Castle: The Older Castle

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bukvoed, CC BY 4.0. Paphos Castle is not the original castle of Paphos. The earlier and larger fortress stood about 600 meters west, at a site called Saranta Kolones, the place of forty columns, named for the Roman granite columns reused in its construction. The Byzantine engineers who built Saranta...

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Image: Bukvoed | CC BY 4.0

Paphos Castle: The Genoese Towers

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan Bellini, CC0. The Lusignans also built two smaller towers about 80 meters east of the castle, right at the entrance of the port. The towers, never directly connected to the main castle and probably operated as a separate defensive complex, came to be known as the Genoese Towers from their role...

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Image: Stefan Bellini | CC0

Paphos Castle: Sforza's Stand

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan Bellini, CC0. Cyprus was Venetian territory by 1489, when the last Lusignan queen, Caterina Cornaro, was persuaded to abdicate in favor of the Republic. The Venetians made some additions to the castle but never extensively rebuilt it, since by the sixteenth century artillery had made small med...

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Image: Stefan Bellini | CC0

Paphos Castle: Salt and Bombs

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rüdiger Stehn from Kiel, Deutschland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Britain took Cyprus from the Ottomans by treaty in 1878. The castle's military function ended that year, and for the next half century it served as a salt depot, the small ramparts and prison cells filled with imported sea salt waiting for distribution. In 1935 it was declared an...

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Image: Rüdiger Stehn from Kiel, Deutschland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Paphos Castle: What You See Now

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bukvoed, CC BY 4.0. Paphos Castle today is a single rectangular tower, 40 by 20 meters, with a closed inner courtyard and a smaller tower on top measuring 15 by 10. Twelve ramparts run around the upper perimeter, the platforms where the Ottoman cannons once stood. The ground floor holds rooms that s...

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Image: Bukvoed | CC BY 4.0