Rozafa Castle stands on a rocky hill about 430 feet (130 m) above sea level, between the Buna and Drin rivers. The hill was settled from the Early Bronze Age. The earliest detected walls date to the 4th or early 3rd century BC, the citadel of the Illyrian city of Skodra. They are described as Cyclopean. Most visible walls are Venetian, with no date given. The article names no patron or architect.
The walls are limestone and brick. A 13th-century Venetian Catholic church, considered St. Stephen's Cathedral, was converted into the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Mosque after the Ottoman capture of Shkodër in the 15th century. The article gives no dimensions and no restoration history.
Excavations reopened in 2011 and found Hellenistic pottery and walls of the 3rd to 1st century BC. The immurement legend is folklore, attested from 1505. Albania owns the castle, which is open to the public.
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