Ras Castle

Ras Castle (Turne Castle) is a former hilltop castle in the village of Schlatten (municipality of Sankt Jakob im Rosental) in Carinthia. It was first mentioned in a document in 1171; today, only parts of the ruins remain.

The Lords of Ras originally resided in an older castle on the Gratschenitzen (also: Gratschitzen, Gratschützen) on the northern slope of the Karawanken southwest of Rosenbach at an altitude of almost 1000 m above sea level. Little is known about this castle, and only sparse remains of its walls are preserved.

Ras Castle, probably the second ancestral seat of the Rasers, was built in the 12th century on a hilltop in the upper Rosental above Schlatten. It is first mentioned in a document from the Patriarchate of Aquileia in 1171 in connection with the church of St. Jakob: "sancti Jacobi ... sub castro Rase". The castle hill lies at an altitude of 635 m above sea level and just under 900 m west of and 100 m above St. Jakob's Church. Between 1309 and 1317, the castle was abandoned after the Rasers had moved their ancestral seat to Rosegg Castle (first mentioned in a document in 1239), about four and a half kilometers north of Ras Castle.