The Seddülbahir Fortress is located at the southern entrance to the Dardanelles on the European shore of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Initially built in the mid-17th century by Hatice Turhan Sultan, the mother of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV,  Seddülbahir, or "the Wall of the Sea," protected the strategic waterway that connected the Aegean Sea to Istanbul, the Ottoman Empire's capital. Despite severe coastal erosion and numerous earthquakes, the fortress and its adjacent village survived into the early 20th century relatively intact. Both were severely bombarded by the Allied Forces in WWI, during the Gallipoli campaign. While many of the masonry towers and walls, and most of its interior structures, were severely damaged, the fortress continued to be used as a Turkish military outpost until 1997, when the documentation, restoration, and re-use process of Seddülbahir began.