Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — a vast marble tomb built around 350 BC for the Persian satrap Mausolos. What remains above ground is not much: a rocky platform, a few foundation walls, some column drums, and a small site museum that explains the scale and splendour of what stood here. It is a site for the imagination more than the eyes.

The museum displays some of the sculptural fragments that survived — sections of the carved frieze showing battles between Greeks and Amazons (the Amazonomachy), and a few other relief pieces. The British Museum in London holds the best surviving sculptures, removed in the 19th century. The site is compact and can be covered in an hour, including the museum.

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A story
The Mausoleum gave its name to all subsequent large monumental tombs. It was built around 350 BC for Mausolos, the Persian-appointed ruler of Caria, by his wife and sister Artemisia II. Ancient sources describe it as spectacularly decorated with marble sculptures by the four leading Greek sculptors of the era — Scopas, Leochares, Bryaxis, and Timotheus, each assigned one side. The Knights of St John dismantled most of it in 1494, using the polished marble for the Castle of St Peter. The word "mausoleum" commemorates someone most people have never heard of.

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