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The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

one of the wonders of the ancient world

 


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Sculpture of King Mausolos in the British Museum London


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The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for nearly 17 centuries.(!) It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C.

In General
Description
How was the Mausoleum alike
The sculptures and friezes in the British Museum
 Results of the last excavation
The Mausoleum today

The Mausoleum

more or less - this is one of the versions of the Mausoleum

 

In general. From today on 2400 years ago, King Mausolos who had just moved his kingdom's capital of Caria from Mylasa (now Milas) to Halicarnassus (today Bodrum), decided to built himself a monumental tomb.
The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Mausolos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

It was not only one of the wonders of the ancient world:
We know from historians, the Mausoleum was different - so different from the Pyramid that it earned its reputation - and a spot within the list - for other reasons. Geographically, it is closer to the Temple of Artemis... And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for centuries.
And the beauty of the Mausoleum was not only in the structure itself, but in the decorations and statues that adorned the outside at different levels on the podium and the roof. These were tens of life-size as well as under and over life-size free-standing statues of people, lions, horses, and other animals.

Vitruvius records that the architect responsible for the Mausoleum was Pytheos, the designer of the Athena temple at Priene and that the reliefs which the memorial was embellished were the works of of the greatest sculptors of the time such as: Bryaxis, Leochares, Scopas, and Timotheus, each was responsible for one side of the mausoleum. The Mausoleum also holds a special place in history as it was not dedicated to the gods of Ancient Greece.

The last written document of a visitor is the one of Bishop Eustathius, he observes in his commentary on Homer, in the twelfth century, that the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is a marvel.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until it tumbled in an heavy earthquake in 1304 AD.


Mausoleum, large sepulchral monument containing a chamber in which funeral urns or coffins are deposited. The name is derived from the tomb erected at Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey) to King Mausolus of Caria (flourished about 376-353 BC) by his widow, Artemisia (d. about 350 BC). It was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World


 


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Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (70?-25 BC), Roman architect and engineer, born probably in Formiae (now Formie), Italy. He was an artillery engineer in the service of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. His ten books on architecture, De Architectura (trans. 1914), the oldest surviving work on the subject, consist of dissertations on a wide variety of subjects relating to architecture, engineering, sanitation, practical hydraulics, acoustic vases, and the like. Much of the material appears to have been taken from earlier extinct treatises by Greek architects. Vitruvius's writings have been studied ever since the Renaissance as a thesaurus of the art of classical Roman architecture.

 

 


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Description and technical datas:

Mausolos

 

 

Description and technical datas
According to the description of the Roman author Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), the monument was almost square, with a total periphery of 411 feet (125 m). It was bounded by 36 columns, and the top formed a 24-step pyramid surmounted by a four-horse marble chariot.
The structure was rectangular in plan, with base dimensions of about 40 m (120 ft) by 30 m (100 ft). Overlying the foundation was a stepped podium which sides were decorated with statues. The burial chamber and the sarcophagus of white alabaster decorated with gold were located on the podium and surrounded by Ionic columns. The colonnade supported a pyramid roof which was in turn decorated with statues. A statue of a chariot pulled by four horses adorned the top of the tomb.
The total height of the Mausoleum was 45 m (140 ft). This is broken down into 20 m (60 ft) for the stepped podium, 12 m (38 ft) for the colonnade, 7 m (22 ft) for the pyramid, and 6 m (20 ft) for the chariot statue at the top.


At the very top of the tomb was a twenty-four-step pyramid surmounted by a marble chariot twenty-five feet tall. The marble base contained a room in which both Mausolus, of whom the tomb was built for, and his wife Artemisia were to be entombed. The Mausoleum had a perimeter of 411 feet (125 meters). It was built to be known for its beauty, richness, and grace.






Like many other provinces, the kingdom of Caria in the western part of Asia Minor (Turkey) was so far from the Persian capital that it was practically autonomous. From 377 to 353 BC, King Mausollos of Caria reigned in Mylasa and moved his capital later to Halicarnassus. Nothing is exciting about Maussollos life except the construction of his tomb. The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Maussollos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until it tumbled in an heavy earthquake in 1304 AD.

In the early fifteenth century, the Knights of St John of Malta invaded the region and built a massive crusader castle. When they decided to fortify it in 1494, they used the stones of the Mausoleum. By 1522, almost every block of the Mausoleum had been disassembled and used for construction.

One of the knights named La Touret describes the plundering of the tomb in his memoires, saying:
"First we found the stairs leading down to the burial chamber below the ground and we were breathless at the spectacular sight in front of our eyes. The second minute we started looting the place, but we didnt have much time, because they commanded us back to the castle. The next day when we came back to the same site, precious gold jewelry and pieces of fine cloth were scattered around the place ...."

The burial chamber still seen today , was most probably robbed much earlier than the theft by the Knights of Rhodes.

 

 

 

Antiken Quellen zufolge war das Bauwerk etwa 50 m hoch, der durch eine Treppe mit dem unteren Teil verbundene Dachbereich schloss ringsum mit einem Säulengang von 35 Säulen ab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







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It was not only one of the wonders of the ancient world:

Mausolos

 

 

We know from historians, the Mausoleum was different - so different from the Pyramid that it earned its reputation - and a spot within the list - for other reasons. Geographically, it is closer to the Temple of Artemis... And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for years.





Like many other provinces, the kingdom of Caria in the western part of Asia Minor (Turkey) was so far from the Persian capital that it was practically autonomous. From 377 to 353 BC, King Mausollos of Caria reigned in Mylasa and moved his capital later to Halicarnassus. Nothing is exciting about Maussollos life except the construction of his tomb. The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Maussollos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until it tumbled in an heavy earthquake in 1304 AD.

In the early fifteenth century, the Knights of St John of Malta invaded the region and built a massive crusader castle. When they decided to fortify it in 1494, they used the stones of the Mausoleum. By 1522, almost every block of the Mausoleum had been disassembled and used for construction.

One of the knights named La Touret describes the plundering of the tomb in his memoires, saying:
"First we found the stairs leading down to the burial chamber below the ground and we were breathless at the spectacular sight in front of our eyes. The second minute we started looting the place, but we didnt have much time, because they commanded us back to the castle. The next day when we came back to the same site, precious gold jewelry and pieces of fine cloth were scattered around the place ...."

The burial chamber still seen today , was most probably robbed much earlier than the theft by the Knights of Rhodes.

 

 

 

Antiken Quellen zufolge war das Bauwerk etwa 50 m hoch, der durch eine Treppe mit dem unteren Teil verbundene Dachbereich schloss ringsum mit einem Säulengang von 35 Säulen ab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

beach between Turgutreis and Akyarlar

Beach between
Turgutreis and Akyarlar

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Antiken Quellen zufolge war das Bauwerk etwa 50 m hoch, der durch eine Treppe mit dem unteren Teil verbundene Dachbereich schloss ringsum mit einem Säulengang von 35 Säulen ab.

 

 

 

 


Today, the massive castle still stands in Bodrum, and the polished stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be spotted within the walls of the structure. Some of the sculptures survived and are today on display at the British Museum in London. These include fragment of statues and many slabs of the frieze showing the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. At the site of the Mausoleum itself, only the foundation remains of the once magnificent Wonder.



 

 Halicarnassus, Mausoleum of



Note: The color painting at the top of the page is of artistic nature and does not necessarily represent an accurate reconstruction of the Wonder. Painting by Mario Larrinaga.



The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

Copyright Lee Krystek, 1998



by four different artists.
For more information on the story behind the images see the link to the Perseus Project below.



The frieze can be read like a








cartoon, hence the title of this article. The scenes are dramatic and dynamic

 

The images on this page are displayed in the order that they are displayed in the British Museum. The names refer to the inventory number of the British Museum. You can either click on of the links below or go to the site map to see thumbnail images of each fotograph.













Sculptures


London, British Museum:
Loewen vom Mausoleum


London, British Museum:
Reiter vom Mausoleum




At the very top of the tomb was a twenty-four-step pyramid surmounted by a marble chariot twenty-five feet tall. The marble base contained a room in which both Mausolus, of whom the tomb was built for, and his wife Artemisia were to be entombed. The Mausoleum had a perimeter of 411 feet (125 meters). It was built to be known for its beauty, richness, and grace.

history.jpg (4169 bytes)

       



The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many centuries. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 B.C.. It stood above the city ruins for some 17 centuries.

Then a series of earthquakes shattered the columns and sent the stone chariot crashing to the ground. By 1404 A.D. only the very base of the Mausoleum was still recognizable. Crusaders, who had occupied the city from the thirteen century onward, recycled the broken stone into their own buildings. In 1522 rumours of a Turkish invasion caused Crusaders to strengthen the castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as Bodrum) and much of the remaining portions of the tomb was broken up and used within the castle walls. Indeed sections of polished marble from the tomb can still be seen there today.

In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location.

Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter, from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.

Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.

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The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for nearly 17 centuries. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C.

2400 years ago, King Mausolos who had just moved his kingdom's capital of Caria from Mylasa (now Milas) to Halicarnassus (now Bodrum), decided to built himself a monumental tomb.
The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Mausolos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

.. And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for years.
The beauty of the Mausoleum is not only in the structure itself, but in the decorations and statues that adorned the outside at different levels on the podium and the roof. These were tens of life-size as well as under and over life-size free-standing statues of people, lions, horses, and other animals.

Vitruvius records that the architect responsible for the Mausoleum was Pytheos, the designer of the Athena temple at Priene and that the reliefs which the memorial was embellished were the works of of the greatest sculptors of the time such as: Bryaxis, Leochares, Scopas, and Timotheus, each was responsible for one side of the mausoleum. The Mausoleum also holds a special place in history as it was not dedicated to the gods of Ancient Greece.



Mausoleum, large sepulchral monument containing a chamber in which funeral urns or coffins are deposited. The name is derived from the tomb erected at Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey) to King Mausolus of Caria (flourished about 376-353 BC) by his widow, Artemisia (d. about 350 BC). It was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World


 


important: negotiate in Gümüslük


All restaurants on the seeside of Türkbükü have their tables on Pontons

click here for the Blue Cruise

 

 


Fischer von Erlach is regarded as Austria's greatest Baroque architect. This drawing is from his book "Entwurff einer historischen Architektur" (1721), a comparative history of architecture from ancient Roman through to his own Baroque style.

 

 

The color painting at the top of the page is of artistic nature and does not necessarily represent an accurate reconstruction of the Wonder. Painting by Mario Larrinaga. 


Since the nineteenth century, archeological excavations have been undertaken at the Mausoleum site. These excavations together with detailed descriptions by ancient historians give us a fairly good idea about the shape and appearance of the Mausoleum. A modern reconstruction of the shorter side of the Mausoleum illustrates the lavish nature of the art and architecture of the building... a building for a King whose name is celebrated in all large tombs today -- mausoleums.

Bishop Eustathius, observes in his commentary on Homer, in the twelfth century, that it is a marvel.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until it tumbled in an heavy earthquake in 1304 AD.
But when the Knights arrived in 1402 they found it in ruins. Looking for building-stone and material for burning lime. they found here a plentiful supply of both; they ren'oved to the castle almost the whole of the solid base, in the interior of which they discovered and destroyed the handsomely decorated tomb-chamber.

In the early fifteenth century, the Knights of St John of Malta invaded the region and built a massive crusader castle. When they decided to fortify it in 1494, they used the stones of the Mausoleum. By 1522, almost every block of the Mausoleum had been disassembled and used for construction

One of the knights named La Touret describes the plundering of the tomb in his memoires, saying:
"First we found the stairs leading down to the burial chamber below the ground and we were breathless at the spectacular sight in front of our eyes. The second minute we started looting the place, but we didnt have much time, because they commanded us back to the castle. The next day when we came back to the same site, precious gold jewelry and pieces of fine cloth were scattered around the place ...."



The burial chamber still seen today , was most probably robbed much earlier than the theft by the Knights of Rhodes.






Who was Mausolos
In the fourth century great changes took place in Caria. After it came again under Persian dominion, it was ruled by the satrap Hecatomnos of Mylasa, from his death on in 377 by his son Mausolus. The kingdom of Caria in the western part of Asia Minor (Turkey) was so far from the Persian capital that it was practically autonomous. Hecatomnus had been ambitious and had taken control of several of the neighboring cities and districts. Mausolus extended the territory even further so that it finally included most of southwestern Asia Minor.

Halicarnassus lived its brightest years during the reign of Mausolus (377-353 BC). During his reign Mausolus transferred his capital from Mylasa to Halicarnassus. Until then Halicarnassus was a comparatively small city, but Mausolus, observing her natural advantages for fortification and commerce from sea.
His ideas were never on a niggardly seale, and he set out to create a worthy capital city. He transplanted the inhabitants of six of the eight Lelegian cities in the neighbourhood. These were of varying size, but some at least, if we may judge by the tribute they paid to Athens in the fifth century, seem to have been comparable to Halicarnassus herself, and the population of the new city must have been four or five times that of the old.

Mausolus was well established in his new capital by 367 BC, and before the end of his reign he ruled from here over a kingdom that included all of Caria and considerable portions of Ionia and Lycia, as well as the islands of Rhodes, Cos, and Chios. Mausolus enclosed his capital at Halicarnassus with a great circuit of powerful defence walls studded with watch-towers at regular intervals, along with three separately walled eitadeis, some three and a half miles long, of which parts are standing today (recently brought into shape by Ericsson-Türkcell, see Myndos Gate).

Mausolos taxed these subjects heavily to pay for these and other grandscale projects, and it is said that he even imposed a levy on hair longer then shoulder length.

Mausolus, with his queen Artemisia, ruled over Halicarnassus and the surrounding territory for 24 years. For his own residence Mausolus built a palace with walls of dried brick, finished in all parts with marble from the Sea of Marmara. Nothing of this palace survives today, and its position has been the subject of much discussion.

Then in 353 BC. Mausolus died, leaving his queen Artemisia, who was also his sister (It was the custom in Caria for rulers to marry their own sisters), broken-hearted. It is not certain that Mausolos initiated the construction of the monument of moussoleion later, but as a tribute to him, Artemisis decided to build him the most splendid tomb in the known world. It became a structure so famous that it was called one of the Seven Wonders of the world. Mausolus's name is now associated with all stately tombs through our modern word mausoleum.

Who was Artemisia
Mausolos died in 353 BC. and was succeeded by his wife and sister Artemisia the younger. She ruled for only three years, but in that time she made herself famous in two notable respects:
The first was the superb tomb with which she has perpetuated her husband's memory, the Mausoleum. For the form of this monument we have to rely on the description given by the elder Pliny, eked out by the rather scanty remains unearthed by Sir Charles Newton in 1857 and in more recent years by a Danish expedition.

This is not the place to discuss details, but the general appearance is clear enough. The building was of rectangular shape and comprised four parts: first, a solid base or podium; above this a colonnade of thirty-six columns, disposed apparently with eleven on the flanks and nine on the short sides, surrounding a rectangular chamber; above again, a pyramid of twenty-four steps; and at the top a chariot-and-four bearing (in all probability) figures of Mausolus and Artemisia. The total height, according to Pliny, was 140 Ionic feet, about 41 metres by modern reckoning. All four sides were adorned with sculptured friezes by some of the first-rate sculptors of the day, Leochares, Bryaxis, Seopas, and Timotheus, who each took one side. Three of them were apparently brought from Greece, but Bryaxis has a Carian name. lt was principally these sculptures, we are told, that caused the Mausoleum to be reckoned among the Seven Wonders. Fragments of them are now in the British Museum, and a single slab is exhibited in the Castle of the Knights

Artemisia's other claim to fame is of a totally different character. That a woman should rule over Caria seemed to the Rhodians an indignity, and also no doubt an opportunity; they therefore equipped a fleet and set out to take the kingdom from her. Artemisia, learning of this, hid her own fleet in a secret harbour joined by a canal to the great harbour. This had been constructed by Mausolus close under his palace, so as to have his ships under his eye and to make his decisions without interference.


The Rhodians sailed in and put their men ashore to occupy the city. Whereupon the queen led her ships quickly out of the secret harbour, seized the unmanned Rhodian vesseis, and carried them out to sea. The Rhodian soldiers, deprived of their retreat, were surrounded and destroyed in the market-place. Artemisia then put her own men on the enemy ships and sailed to Rhodes. There the Rhodians, supposing their own ships to be returning victorious, admitted the Halicarnassians, and the city was easily captured. To celebrate this victory Artemisia had a trophy erected there in the form of a statue of herseif brand-ing the city of Rhodes. Humiliating though this was for the Rhodians, ancient custom forbade that a trophy once set up should be taken down; to hide their shame, therefore, they afterwards erected a building around it and declared it forbidden ground.
On Artemisia's death in 350 B.C. the succession passed in turn to the other children of Hecatomnos, the last of whom, Pixodarus, called in a Persian satrap named Orontobates to share his rule; and this satrap was in control when Alexander arrived in 334, shortly after Pixodarus' death. Of the Macedonian siege of Halicarnassus we have detailed accounts by Diodorus and Arrian, from which the course of events is reasonably clear. Orontobates was assisted in the defence by the Rhodian Memnon fighting in the Persian cause, and the city was weil prepared, with command of the sea. Alexander fixed his headquarters on the north-east side, near the Mylasa gate, and after an unsuccessful attack on Myndus settled down to the siege of Halicarnassus.
Sending round a detachment to invest the city on the west side by the Myndus gate and to prevent reinforcement from that quarter, he took command in person on the north-east. Filling in the fosse, he brought up his siege-engines and succeeded in breaking through the wall. Ihe defenders, however, fought back vigorously and built an inner wall to dose the breach. Ihe fighting continued with fre-quent sallies by the Persians to set fire to the engines, all of which were repulsed with much slaughter on either side; the historians emphasize the fierce and determined bravery of both parties. One



Fragments of the mausoleum's sculpture that are preserved in the British Museum include a frieze of battling Greeks and Amazons and a statue 10 feet (3 m) long, probably of Mausolus.


It was not only one of the wonders of the ancient world:
We know from historians, the Mausoleum was different - so different from the Pyramid that it earned its reputation - and a spot within the list - for other reasons. Geographically, it is closer to the Temple of Artemis... And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for years.





Nothing is exciting about Maussollos life except the construction of his tomb. The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Maussollos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until it tumbled in an heavy earthquake in 1304 AD.




Today, the massive castle still stands in Bodrum, and the polished stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be spotted within the walls of the structure. Some of the sculptures survived and are today on display at the British Museum in London. These include fragment of statues and many slabs of the frieze showing the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. At the site of the Mausoleum itself, only the foundation remains of the once magnificent Wonder.


Description and technical datas

According to the description of the Roman author Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), the monument was almost square, with a total periphery of 411 feet (125 m). It was bounded by 36 columns, and the top formed a 24-step pyramid surmounted by a four-horse marble chariot.
The structure was rectangular in plan, with base dimensions of about 40 m (120 ft) by 30 m (100 ft). Overlying the foundation was a stepped podium which sides were decorated with statues. The burial chamber and the sarcophagus of white alabaster decorated with gold were located on the podium and surrounded by Ionic columns. The colonnade supported a pyramid roof which was in turn decorated with statues. A statue of a chariot pulled by four horses adorned the top of the tomb.
The total height of the Mausoleum was 45 m (140 ft). This is broken down into 20 m (60 ft) for the stepped podium, 12 m (38 ft) for the colonnade, 7 m (22 ft) for the pyramid, and 6 m (20 ft) for the chariot statue at the top.




Sir Charles Newton



Travellers to Bodrum had long reported that many fragments of the aneient Mausoleum were to be Seen built into the walls of the castle of St. Peter. In June ,844 Charles Alison stopped off at Bodrum at the request of Stratford C'anning. British ambassador to the Sublime Porte, who instructed hirn to report on what sculptures of the Mausoleum were visible in the walls of the fortress. Alison's report led Canning to request permission from the Ottoman government to remove these sculptures to England, and in 1846 Sultan Abdül Meeit gra-ciously granted his request. Canning sent an expedition to Bodrum to remove the sculptures, which were carried off to England in a British warship. The marbles, which included thirteen of the original seventeen slabs of an Amazonomachy, a battle hetween Greeks and Amazons, were exhibitcd in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum along with more sculptures obtained by Sir Charles Newton in his excavations at Bodrum in ,856-9 (another expedition sponsored by Canning). During his exeavations Newton succeeded in finding the site of the Mausoleum itseif, a diseovery he described in his Traveis and Discoveries in the Levant. 1 used his book myseif on this trip as a guide to the antiquities of Bodrum and Cnidus.



In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location.

Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter, from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.

Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.


In 377 B.C., the city of Halicarnassus was the capitol of a small kingdom along the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor. It was in that year the ruler of this land, Hecatomnus of Mylasa, died and left control of the kingdom to his son, Mausolus. Hecatomnus, a local satrap to the Persians, had been ambitious and had taken control of several of the neighboring cities and districts. Mausolus in his time, extended the territory even further so that it finally included most of southwestern Asia Minor.

Mausolus, with his queen Artemisia, ruled over Halicarnassus and the surrounding territory for 24 years. Mausolus, though he was descended from the local people, spoke Greek and admired the Greek way of life and government. He founded many cities of Greek design along the coast and encouraged Greek democratic traditions.

Then in 353 B.C. Mausolus died, leaving his queen Artemisia, who was also his sister (It was the custom in Caria for rulers to marry their own sisters), broken-hearted. As a tribute to him, she decided to build him the most splendid tomb in the known world. It became a structure so famous that Mausolus's name is now associated with all stately tombs through our modern word mausoleum. The building was also so beautiful and unique it became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Artemisia decided that no expense was to be spared in the building of the tomb. She sent messengers to Greece to find the most talented artists of the time. This included Scopas, the man who had supervised the rebuilding of the Temple to Artemis at Ephesus. Other famous sculptors such as Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheus joined him as well as hundreds of other craftsmen.

The tomb was erected on a hill overlooking the city. The whole structure sat in an enclosed courtyard. At the center of the courtyard was a stone platform on which the tomb itself sat. A staircase, flanked by stone lions, led to the top of this platform. Along the outer wall of this were many statues depicting gods and goddess. At each corner stone warriors, mounted on horseback, guarded the tomb.

At the center of the platform was the tomb itself. Made mostly of marble, the structure rose as a square, tapering block to about one-third of the Mausoleum's 140 foot height. This section was covered with relief sculpture showing action scenes from Greek myth/history. One part showed the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapiths. Another depicted Greeks in combat with the Amazons, a race of warrior women.

On top of this section of the tomb thirty-six slim columns, nine per side, rose for another third of the height. Standing in between each column was another statue. Behind the columns was a solid block that carried the weight of the tomb's massive roof.

The roof, which comprised most of the final third of the height, was in the form of a stepped pyramid. Perched on top was the tomb's penultimate work of sculpture: Four massive horses pulling a chariot in which images of Mausolus and Artemisia rode.

Soon after construction of the tomb started Artemisia found herself in a crisis. Rhodes, an island in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Asia Minor, had been conquered by Mausolus. When the Rhodians heard of his death they rebelled and sent a fleet of ships to capture the city of Halicarnassus. Knowing that the Rhodian fleet was on the way, Artemisa hid her own ships at a secret location at the east end of the city's harbor. After troops from the Rhodian fleet disembarked to attack, Artemisia's fleet made a surprise raid, captured the Rhodian fleet, and towed it out to sea.

Artemisa put her own soldiers on the invading ships and sailed them back to Rhodes. Fooled into thinking that the returning ships were their own victorious navy, the Rhodians failed to put up a defense and the city was easily captured quelling the rebellion.

Artemisa lived for only two years after the death of her husband. Both would be buried in the yet unfinished tomb. According to the historian Pliny, the craftsmen decided to stay and finish the work after their patron died "considering that it was at once a memorial of their own fame and of the sculptor's art."

The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many centuries. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 B.C.. It stood above the city ruins for some 17 centuries. Then a series of earthquakes shattered the columns and sent the stone chariot crashing to the ground. By 1404 A.D. only the very base of the Mausoleum was still recognizable.

Crusaders, who had occupied the city from the thirteen century onward, recycled the broken stone into their own buildings. In 1522 rumors of a Turkish invasion caused Crusaders to strengthen the castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as Bodrum) and much of the remaining portions of the tomb was broken up and used within the castle walls. Indeed sections of polished marble from the tomb can still be seen there today.

At this time a party of knights entered the base of the monument and discovered the room containing a great coffin. The party, deciding it was too late to open it that day, returned the next morning to find the tomb, and any treasure it may have contained, plundered. The bodies of Mausolus and Artemisia were missing too. The Knights claimed that Moslem villagers were responsible for the theft, but it is more likely that some of the Crusaders themselves plundered the graves.

Before grounding much of the remaining sculpture of the Mausoleum into lime for plaster the Knights removed several of the best works and mounted them in the Bodrum castle. There they stayed for three centuries. At that time the British ambassador obtained several of the statutes from the castle, which now reside in the British Museum.

In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location. Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter, from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.

Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The mausoleum of Halikarnassos (near Bodrum in modern day Turkey) is one of the ancient seven wonders in the world. The monument was according to some sources still standing in the 12th century AD.
Between 1856 and 1858 Sir Charles Newton and in 1865 G.M.A. Biliotti excavated the ancient ruins. An nowdays the British Museum in London now houses some examples of sculpture and relief's from the mausoleum. On the original site there is nothing left but ruins.
On this page I present my series of photographs of the frieze of the mausoleum which I have in the British Museum taken in July 1999. All images contain a short description of the depicted scene.
The relief's depict a battle between the Amazons and the Greek and were sculpted around 350 BC by four different artists.
For more information on the story behind the images see the link to the Perseus Project below.



The frieze can be read like a cartoon, hence the title of this article. The scenes are dramatic and dynamic



The images on this page are displayed in the order that they are displayed in the British Museum. The names refer to the inventory number of the British Museum. You can either click on of the links below or go to the site map to see thumbnail images of each fotograph.











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Sculptures



London, British Museum:
Loewen vom Mausoleum


London, British Museum:
Reiter vom Mausoleum


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At the very top of the tomb was a twenty-four-step pyramid surmounted by a marble chariot twenty-five feet tall. The marble base contained a room in which both Mausolus, of whom the tomb was built for, and his wife Artemisia were to be entombed. The Mausoleum had a perimeter of 411 feet (125 meters). It was built to be known for its beauty, richness, and grace.



The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was built in approximately 353 B.C., and it was said to be one of the finest buildings in all of Halicarnassus. The Mausoleum's construction was ordered by Queen Artemisia to be a tomb and monument of King Mausolus. After his death, Queen Artemisia resolved to build him the most immaculate tomb the world had ever seen. She sent for the most gifted artist of that time period. Sculptors like Scopas who had helped rebuild the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and others such as Timotheus Bryaxis and Leochares. The architects who answered Artemisia’s call were Satyros and Pythias. In building the tomb no effort was made to out do the pyramids. Two years after her husband's death and the construction of the tomb began, Queen Artemisa died. At this time the tomb was still incomplete, however the sculptors resolved to finish their work. The tomb became known as the mausoleum, and the word has passed into our language, as a word used to describe a large tomb. Earthquakes destroyed the Mausoleum in the fifteenth century, shattering the columns and sending the chariot crashing down.

By 1404 AD only the square base remained intact, the rest of the stone was used by the Crusaders for building material. It was the Crusaders who discovered what was in the base of the monument, and it was during this time that a group of Crusaders ransacked the tomb stripping it of all its treasure. In 1897 a British archeologist named Newton began to excavate the remains. He found fragments of the chariot and uncovered statues of both Mausolos and Artemisia. The remains can be found in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum.


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The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many centuries. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 B.C.. It stood above the city ruins for some 17 centuries.

Then a series of earthquakes shattered the columns and sent the stone chariot crashing to the ground. By 1404 A.D. only the very base of the Mausoleum was still recognizable. Crusaders, who had occupied the city from the thirteen century onward, recycled the broken stone into their own buildings. In 1522 rumours of a Turkish invasion caused Crusaders to strengthen the castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as Bodrum) and much of the remaining portions of the tomb was broken up and used within the castle walls. Indeed sections of polished marble from the tomb can still be seen there today.

In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location.

Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter, from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.

Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.

.


Mausolos

 

 

Who was Mausolos
In the fourth century great changes took place in Caria. After it came again under Persian dominion, it was ruled by the satrap Hecatomnos of Mylasa, from his death on in 377 by his son Mausolus. The kingdom of Caria in the western part of Asia Minor (Turkey) was so far from the Persian capital that it was practically autonomous. Hecatomnus had been ambitious and had taken control of several of the neighboring cities and districts. Mausolus extended the territory even further so that it finally included most of southwestern Asia Minor.

see
Myndos Gate).

Mausolos taxed these subjects heavily to pay for these and other grandscale projects, and it is said that he even imposed a levy on hair longer then shoulder length.

Mausolus, with his queen Artemisia, ruled over Halicarnassus and the surrounding territory for 24 years. For his own residence Mausolus built a palace with walls of dried brick, finished in all parts with marble from the Sea of Marmara. Nothing of this palace survives today, and its position has been the subject of much discussion.

Then in 353
BC. Mausolus died, leaving his queen Artemisia, who was also his sister (It was the custom in Caria for rulers to marry their own sisters), broken-hearted. It is not certain that Mausolos initiated the construction of the monument of moussoleion later, but as a tribute to him, Artemisis decided to build him the most splendid tomb in the known world. It became a structure so famous that it was called one of the Seven Wonders of the world. Mausolus's name is now associated with all stately tombs through our modern word mausoleum.



Who was Artemisia
Mausolos died in 353
BC. and was succeeded by his wife and sister Artemisia the younger. She ruled for only three years, but in that time she made herself famous in two notable respects:
The first was the superb tomb with which she has perpetuated her husband's memory, the Mausoleum. For the form of this monument we have to rely on the description given by the elder Pliny, eked out by the rather scanty remains unearthed by Sir Charles Newton in 1857 and in more recent years by a Danish expedition.

This is not the place to discuss details, but the general appearance is clear enough. The building was of rectangular shape and comprised four parts: first, a solid base or podium; above this a colonnade of thirty-six columns, disposed apparently with eleven on the flanks and nine on the short sides, surrounding a rectangular chamber; above again, a pyramid of twenty-four steps; and at the top a chariot-and-four bearing (in all probability) figures of Mausolus and Artemisia. The total height, according to Pliny, was 140 Ionic feet, about 41 metres by modern reckoning. All four sides were adorned with sculptured friezes by some of the first-rate sculptors of the day, Leochares, Bryaxis, Seopas, and Timotheus, who each took one side. Three of them were apparently brought from Greece, but Bryaxis has a Carian name. lt was principally these sculptures, we are told, that caused the Mausoleum to be reckoned among the Seven Wonders. Fragments of them are now in the British Museum, and a single slab is exhibited in the
Castle of the Knights

Artemisia's other claim to fame is of a totally different character. That a woman should rule over Caria seemed to the Rhodians an indignity, and also no doubt an opportunity; they therefore equipped a fleet and set out to take the kingdom from her. Artemisia, learning of this, hid her own fleet in a secret harbour joined by a canal to the great harbour. This had been constructed by Mausolus close under his palace, so as to have his ships under his eye and to make his decisions without interference.

ancient boat

 

 

The Rhodians sailed in and put their men ashore to occupy the city. Whereupon the queen led her ships quickly out of the secret harbour, seized the unmanned Rhodian vesseis, and carried them out to sea. The Rhodian soldiers, deprived of their retreat, were surrounded and destroyed in the market-place. Artemisia then put her own men on the enemy ships and sailed to Rhodes. There the Rhodians, supposing their own ships to be returning victorious, admitted the Halicarnassians, and the city was easily captured. To celebrate this victory Artemisia had a trophy erected there in the form of a statue of herseif brand-ing the city of Rhodes. Humiliating though this was for the Rhodians, ancient custom forbade that a trophy once set up should be taken down; to hide their shame, therefore, they afterwards erected a building around it and declared it forbidden ground.
On Artemisia's death in 350 B.C. the succession passed in turn to the other children of Hecatomnos, the last of whom, Pixodarus, called in a Persian satrap named Orontobates to share his rule; and this satrap was in control when Alexander arrived in 334, shortly after Pixodarus' death. Of the Macedonian siege of Halicarnassus we have detailed accounts by Diodorus and Arrian, from which the course of events is reasonably clear. Orontobates was assisted in the defence by the Rhodian Memnon fighting in the Persian cause, and the city was weil prepared, with command of the sea. Alexander fixed his headquarters on the north-east side, near the Mylasa gate, and after an unsuccessful attack on Myndus settled down to the siege of Halicarnassus.
Sending round a detachment to invest the city on the west side by the Myndus gate and to prevent reinforcement from that quarter, he took command in person on the north-east. Filling in the fosse, he brought up his siege-engines and succeeded in breaking through the wall. Ihe defenders, however, fought back vigorously and built an inner wall to dose the breach. Ihe fighting continued with fre-quent sallies by the Persians to set fire to the engines, all of which were repulsed with much slaughter on either side; the historians emphasize the fierce and determined bravery of both parties. One

Artemisia I
Encyclopædia Britannica Article

flourished 5th century BC
queen of Halicarnassus, a Greek city in Caria, and of the nearby island of Cos in about 480.

Artemisia ruled under the overlordship of the Persian king Xerxes (reigned 486–465) and participated in Xerxes' invasion of Greece (480–479). Despite her able command of five ships in the major naval battle with the Greeks off the island of Salamis near Athens, the Persian fleet suffered…




Fragments of the mausoleum's sculpture that are preserved in the British Museum include a frieze of battling Greeks and Amazons and a statue 10 feet (3 m) long, probably of Mausolus.


It was not only one of the wonders of the ancient world
:
We know from historians, the Mausoleum was different - so different from the Pyramid that it earned its reputation - and a spot within the list - for other reasons. Geographically, it is closer to the Temple of Artemis... And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for years.





Nothing is exciting about Maussollos life except the construction of his tomb. The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Maussollos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until it tumbled in an heavy earthquake in 1304 AD.




Today, the massive castle still stands in Bodrum, and the polished stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be spotted within the walls of the structure. Some of the sculptures survived and are today on display at the British Museum in London. These include fragment of statues and many slabs of the frieze showing the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. At the site of the Mausoleum itself, only the foundation remains of the once magnificent Wonder.

Description and technical datas
According to the description of the Roman author Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), the monument was almost square, with a total periphery of 411 feet (125 m). It was bounded by 36 columns, and the top formed a 24-step pyramid surmounted by a four-horse marble chariot.
The structure was rectangular in plan, with base dimensions of about 40 m (120 ft) by 30 m (100 ft). Overlying the foundation was a stepped podium which sides were decorated with statues. The burial chamber and the sarcophagus of white alabaster decorated with gold were located on the podium and surrounded by Ionic columns. The colonnade supported a pyramid roof which was in turn decorated with statues. A statue of a chariot pulled by four horses adorned the top of the tomb.
The total height of the Mausoleum was 45 m (140 ft). This is broken down into 20 m (60 ft) for the stepped podium, 12 m (38 ft) for the colonnade, 7 m (22 ft) for the pyramid, and 6 m (20 ft) for the chariot statue at the top.




Sir Charles Newton

Kümbet

 

 


Travellers to Bodrum had long reported that many fragments of the aneient Mausoleum were to be Seen built into the walls of the castle of St. Peter. In June ,844 Charles Alison stopped off at Bodrum at the request of Stratford C'anning. British ambassador to the Sublime Porte, who instructed hirn to report on what sculptures of the Mausoleum were visible in the walls of the fortress. Alison's report led Canning to request permission from the Ottoman government to remove these sculptures to England, and in 1846 Sultan Abdül Meeit gra-ciously granted his request. Canning sent an expedition to Bodrum to remove the sculptures, which were carried off to England in a British warship. The marbles, which included thirteen of the original seventeen slabs of an Amazonomachy, a battle hetween Greeks and Amazons, were exhibitcd in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum along with more sculptures obtained by Sir Charles Newton in his excavations at Bodrum in ,856-9 (another expedition sponsored by Canning). During his exeavations Newton succeeded in finding the site of the Mausoleum itseif, a diseovery he described in his Traveis and Discoveries in the Levant. 1 used his book myseif on this trip as a guide to the antiquities of Bodrum and Cnidus.




In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location.


Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter, from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.

Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him






One of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
(sailturley)
The mausoleum was the tomb of Mausolos, from where the name came, and it was the most enduring achievement of his wife/sister Artemisia THE Younger, who, after Mausolos death in 352 BC, had it built in his honor. Mausolos tomb became one of the most famous architectural showpieces of antiquity; it was named one of the seven wonders of the world by the travel writers of the Hellenistic era. It consisted of a solid rectangular base topped by 36 Ionic columns. These were surmounted by a pyramid and crowned with a massive statue of Mausolos and Artemisia riding a chariot, reaching a total height of 40 mt.. the base was adorned with a frieze executed by four of the leading sculptors of ancient Greece, one per side; classical writers were most impressed by these sculptures.
The Mausoleum dominated the skyline of the city at least until the 12th century; by the early 15th century it lay in ruins, most likely due to the earthquakes frequent in the area. The Knights of St. John put the remaining stones to use as building material for the Bodrum castle. One can still observe large slabs of greenish granite and the classical architectural fragments embedded in the castle walls.

The site of the Mausoleum was discovered in 1857 by the English orientalist Sir Charles Newton who was conducting an expedition on behalf of the British Museum (his other finds on this campaign included Didyma and Cnidus). The building was gone, but Newton found pieces of the Mausoleum frieze in the basement of the site as well as in villagers' backyards and in the walls of their houses. With the help of Sir Stratford Canning, the British ambassador at Istanbul, these were collected and transferred to the British Museum. For many years afterward the Mausoleum site remained a vegetable patch and cow-shed on private property.

For at least the last 20 years a Danish team of archaeologists and conservators, led by Prof. Kristian Jeppesen of the Aarhus University in Denmark, has been excavating and preserving the little remains of the site, consisting on the funerary underground chamber and architectural remains, many of them were found in the vicinity and the castle.

The Mausoleum Museum was opened in 1988 thanks to the join auspices of the Turkish and Danish governments, now under the management of the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology. The exhibit includes a piece of the Mausoleum frieze that was found embedded in the castle walls and so escaped the depredations of Newton.

.



Engraving of Mausoleum at Helicarnassus

 

Engraving of Mausoleum at Helicarnassus

Fischer von Erlach is regarded as Austria's greatest Baroque architect. This drawing is from his book "Entwurff einer historischen Architektur" (1721), a comparative history of architecture from ancient Roman through to his own Baroque style.

castle in 18th century

Click to enlarge This is lokantas" are eating places specialized in quite inexpensive regional Turkish fo

Ortakent beach

lokantas" are eating places specialized in quite inexpensive regional Turkish fo

 

Alokantas" are eating places specialized in quite inexpensive regional Turkish foge




Traditional life lingers on
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"Where do I find the Mausoleum in todays Bodrum?"
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The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

It was not only one of the wonders of the ancient world:

Mausolos

 

 

We know from historians, the Mausoleum was different - so different from the Pyramid that it earned its reputation - and a spot within the list - for other reasons. Geographically, it is closer to the Temple of Artemis... And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for years.





Like many other provinces, the kingdom of Caria in the western part of Asia Minor (Turkey) was so far from the Persian capital that it was practically autonomous. From 377 to 353 BC, King Mausollos of Caria reigned in Mylasa and moved his capital later to Halicarnassus. Nothing is exciting about Maussollos life except the construction of his tomb. The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Maussollos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until it tumbled in an heavy earthquake in 1304 AD.

In the early fifteenth century, the Knights of St John of Malta invaded the region and built a massive crusader castle. When they decided to fortify it in 1494, they used the stones of the Mausoleum. By 1522, almost every block of the Mausoleum had been disassembled and used for construction.

One of the knights named La Touret describes the plundering of the tomb in his memoires, saying:
"First we found the stairs leading down to the burial chamber below the ground and we were breathless at the spectacular sight in front of our eyes. The second minute we started looting the place, but we didnt have much time, because they commanded us back to the castle. The next day when we came back to the same site, precious gold jewelry and pieces of fine cloth were scattered around the place ...."

The burial chamber still seen today , was most probably robbed much earlier than the theft by the Knights of Rhodes.



Today, the massive castle still stands in Bodrum, and the polished stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be spotted within the walls of the structure. Some of the sculptures survived and are today on display at the British Museum in London. These include fragment of statues and many slabs of the frieze showing the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. At the site of the Mausoleum itself, only the foundation remains of the once magnificent Wonder.

Description
The structure was rectangular in plan, with base dimensions of about 40 m (120 ft) by 30 m (100 ft). Overlying the foundation was a stepped podium which sides were decorated with statues. The burial chamber and the sarcophagus of white alabaster decorated with gold were located on the podium and surrounded by Ionic columns. The colonnade supported a pyramid roof which was in turn decorated with statues. A statue of a chariot pulled by four horses adorned the top of the tomb.
The total height of the Mausoleum was 45 m (140 ft). This is broken down into 20 m (60 ft) for the stepped podium, 12 m (38 ft) for the colonnade, 7 m (22 ft) for the pyramid, and 6 m (20 ft) for the chariot statue at the top.
The beauty of the Mausoleum is not only in the structure itself, but in the decorations and statues that adorned the outside at different levels on the podium and the roof. These were tens of life-size as well as under and over life-size free-standing statues of people, lions, horses, and other animals. The statues were carved by four Greek sculptors: Bryaxis, Leochares, Scopas, and Timotheus, each responsible for one side. Because the statues were of people and animals, the Mausoleum holds a special place in history as it was not dedicated to the gods of Ancient Greece.
Since the nineteenth century, archeological excavations have been undertaken at the Mausoleum site. These excavations together with detailed descriptions by ancient historians give us a fairly good idea about the shape and appearance of the Mausoleum. A modern reconstruction of the shorter side of the Mausoleum illustrates the lavish nature of the art and architecture of the building... a building for a King whose name is celebrated in all large tombs today -- mausoleums.





The Mausoleum finally was destroyed by an earthquake in 1304 AD






Kümbet

 

 

Torba, a modern village with holiday villas and a nice marina is located 8 km north of Bodrum. Gölköy and Türkbükü are small and simple fishing villages with a


handful of

Artemisia II

 

 

 

Artemisia II, statue by an unknown artist; in the National Archeological Mu ...

 

 

 



d. c. 350 BC

sister and wife of King Mausolus (reigned 377/376-353/352) of Caria, in southwestern Anatolia, and sole ruler for about three years after the king's death. She built for her husband, in his capital at Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum, Turkey), the tomb called the Mausoleum, which was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Artemisia was also known as a botanist and medical researcher; Artemisia, a plant genus, is named after her.

taverns overlooking a lovely bay.








Engraving of Mausoleum at Helicarnassus

 

Engraving of Mausoleum at Helicarnassus

Fischer von Erlach is regarded as Austria's greatest Baroque architect. This drawing is from his book "Entwurff einer historischen Architektur" (1721), a comparative history of architecture from ancient Roman through to his own Baroque style.

© Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS

Image ID: HT007250

country house in Türkbükü

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A summer evening in
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Traditional life lingers on
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 Halicarnassus, Mausoleum of

Britannica

 

 

Battle between Greeks and Amazons, section of marble frieze from the Mausol ...

 

 

 

Battle between Greeks and Amazons, section of marble frieze from the Mausol ...

 

 

 

one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The monument was the tomb of Mausolus, the tyrant of Caria in southwestern Asia Minor, and was built between about 353 and 351 BC by Mausolus' sister and widow, Artemisia. The architect was Pythius (or Pytheos), and the sculptures that adorned the building were the work of four leading Greek artists: Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares, and Timotheus.

According to the description of the Roman author Pliny the Elder (ad 23-79), the monument was almost square, with a total periphery of 411 feet (125 m). It was bounded by 36 columns, and the top formed a 24-step pyramid surmounted by a four-horse marble chariot. Fragments of the mausoleum's sculpture that are preserved in the British Museum include a frieze of battling Greeks and Amazons and a statue 10 feet (3 m) long, probably of Mausolus. The mausoleum was probably destroyed by an earthquake between the 11th and the 15th century AD, and the stones were reused in local buildings.

I have lying, over me in Halicarnassus, a gigantic monument such as no other dead person has, adorned in the finest way with statues of horses and men carved most realistically from the best quality marble.

King Maussollos
in Lucian's "Dialogues of the Dead"



Note: The color painting at the top of the page is of artistic nature and does not necessarily represent an accurate reconstruction of the Wonder. Painting by Mario Larrinaga.

Similar to the Great Pyramid, we are now visiting the burial place of an ancient king. Yet the Mausoleum is different - so different from the Pyramid that it earned its reputation - and a spot within the list - for other reasons. Geographically, it is closer to the Temple of Artemis... And it was the beauty of the tomb rather than its size that fascinated its visitors for years.

Location

In the city of Bodrum (f.k.a. Halicarnassus) on the Aegean Sea, in south-west Turkey.

History

When the Persians expanded their ancient kingdom to include Mesopotamia, Northern India, Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor, the king could not control his vast empire without the help of local governors or rulers -- the Satraps. Like many other provinces, the kingdom of Caria in the western part of Asia Minor (Turkey) was so far from the Persian capital that it was practically autonomous. From 377 to 353 BC, king Mausollos of Caria reigned and moved his capital to Halicarnassus. Nothing is exciting about Maussollos life except the construction of his tomb. The project was conceived by his wife and sister Artemisia, and the construction might have started during the king's lifetime. The Mausoleum was completed around 350 BC, three years after Maussollos death, and one year after Artemisia's.

For 16 centuries, the Mausoleum remained in good condition until an earthquake caused some damage to the roof and colonnade. In the early fifteenth century, the Knights of St John of Malta invaded the region and built a massive crusader castle. When they decided to fortify it in 1494, they used the stones of the Mausoleum. By 1522, almost every block of the Mausoleum had been disassembled and used for construction.

Today, the massive castle still stands in Bodrum, and the polished stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be spotted within the walls of the structure. Some of the sculptures survived and are today on display at the British Museum in London. These include fragment of statues and many slabs of the frieze showing the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. At the site of the Mausoleum itself, only the foundation remains of the once magnificent Wonder.

Description

The structure was rectangular in plan, with base dimensions of about 40 m (120 ft) by 30 m (100 ft). Overlying the foundation was a stepped podium which sides were decorated with statues. The burial chamber and the sarcophagus of white alabaster decorated with gold were located on the podium and surrounded by Ionic columns. The colonnade supported a pyramid roof which was in turn decorated with statues. A statue of a chariot pulled by four horses adorned the top of the tomb.

The total height of the Mausoleum was 45 m (140 ft). This is broken down into 20 m (60 ft) for the stepped podium, 12 m (38 ft) for the colonnade, 7 m (22 ft) for the pyramid, and 6 m (20 ft) for the chariot statue at the top.

The beauty of the Mausoleum is not only in the structure itself, but in the decorations and statues that adorned the outside at different levels on the podium and the roof. These were tens of life-size as well as under and over life-size free-standing statues of people, lions, horses, and other animals. The statues were carved by four Greek sculptors: Bryaxis, Leochares, Scopas, and Timotheus, each responsible for one side. Because the statues were of people and animals, the Mausoleum holds a special place in history as it was not dedicated to the gods of Ancient Greece.

Since the nineteenth century, archeological excavations have been undertaken at the Mausoleum site. These excavations together with detailed descriptions by ancient historians give us a fairly good idea about the shape and appearance of the Mausoleum. A modern reconstruction of the shorter side of the Mausoleum illustrates the lavish nature of the art and architecture of the building... a building for a King whose name is celebrated in all large tombs today -- mausoleums.


The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

Copyright Lee Krystek, 1998


In 377 B.C., the city of Halicarnassus was the capitol of a small kingdom along the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor. It was in that year the ruler of this land, Hecatomnus of Mylasa, died and left control of the kingdom to his son, Mausolus. Hecatomnus, a local satrap to the Persians, had been ambitious and had taken control of several of the neighboring cities and districts. Mausolus in his time, extended the territory even further so that it finally included most of southwestern Asia Minor.

Mausolus, with his queen Artemisia, ruled over Halicarnassus and the surrounding territory for 24 years. Mausolus, though he was descended from the local people, spoke Greek and admired the Greek way of life and government. He founded many cities of Greek design along the coast and encouraged Greek democratic traditions.

Then in 353 B.C. Mausolus died, leaving his queen Artemisia, who was also his sister (It was the custom in Caria for rulers to marry their own sisters), broken-hearted. As a tribute to him, she decided to build him the most splendid tomb in the known world. It became a structure so famous that Mausolus's name is now associated with all stately tombs through our modern word mausoleum. The building was also so beautiful and unique it became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Artemisia decided that no expense was to be spared in the building of the tomb. She sent messengers to Greece to find the most talented artists of the time. This included Scopas, the man who had supervised the rebuilding of the Temple to Artemis at Ephesus. Other famous sculptors such as Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheus joined him as well as hundreds of other craftsmen.

The tomb was erected on a hill overlooking the city. The whole structure sat in an enclosed courtyard. At the center of the courtyard was a stone platform on which the tomb itself sat. A staircase, flanked by stone lions, led to the top of this platform. Along the outer wall of this were many statues depicting gods and goddess. At each corner stone warriors, mounted on horseback, guarded the tomb.

At the center of the platform was the tomb itself. Made mostly of marble, the structure rose as a square, tapering block to about one-third of the Mausoleum's 140 foot height. This section was covered with relief sculpture showing action scenes from Greek myth/history. One part showed the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapiths. Another depicted Greeks in combat with the Amazons, a race of warrior women.

On top of this section of the tomb thirty-six slim columns, nine per side, rose for another third of the height. Standing in between each column was another statue. Behind the columns was a solid block that carried the weight of the tomb's massive roof.

The roof, which comprised most of the final third of the height, was in the form of a stepped pyramid. Perched on top was the tomb's penultimate work of sculpture: Four massive horses pulling a chariot in which images of Mausolus and Artemisia rode.

Soon after construction of the tomb started Artemisia found herself in a crisis. Rhodes, an island in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Asia Minor, had been conquered by Mausolus. When the Rhodians heard of his death they rebelled and sent a fleet of ships to capture the city of Halicarnassus. Knowing that the Rhodian fleet was on the way, Artemisa hid her own ships at a secret location at the east end of the city's harbor. After troops from the Rhodian fleet disembarked to attack, Artemisia's fleet made a surprise raid, captured the Rhodian fleet, and towed it out to sea.

Artemisa put her own soldiers on the invading ships and sailed them back to Rhodes. Fooled into thinking that the returning ships were their own victorious navy, the Rhodians failed to put up a defense and the city was easily captured quelling the rebellion.

Artemisa lived for only two years after the death of her husband. Both would be buried in the yet unfinished tomb. According to the historian Pliny, the craftsmen decided to stay and finish the work after their patron died "considering that it was at once a memorial of their own fame and of the sculptor's art."

The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many centuries. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 B.C.. It stood above the city ruins for some 17 centuries. Then a series of earthquakes shattered the columns and sent the stone chariot crashing to the ground. By 1404 A.D. only the very base of the Mausoleum was still recognizable.

Crusaders, who had occupied the city from the thirteen century onward, recycled the broken stone into their own buildings. In 1522 rumors of a Turkish invasion caused Crusaders to strengthen the castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as Bodrum) and much of the remaining portions of the tomb was broken up and used within the castle walls. Indeed sections of polished marble from the tomb can still be seen there today.

At this time a party of knights entered the base of the monument and discovered the room containing a great coffin. The party, deciding it was too late to open it that day, returned the next morning to find the tomb, and any treasure it may have contained, plundered. The bodies of Mausolus and Artemisia were missing too. The Knights claimed that Moslem villagers were responsible for the theft, but it is more likely that some of the Crusaders themselves plundered the graves.

Before grounding much of the remaining sculpture of the Mausoleum into lime for plaster the Knights removed several of the best works and mounted them in the Bodrum castle. There they stayed for three centuries. At that time the British ambassador obtained several of the statutes from the castle, which now reside in the British Museum.

In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location. Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter, from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.

Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.


The mausoleum of Halikarnassos (near Bodrum in modern day Turkey) is one of the ancient seven wonders in the world. The monument was according to some sources still standing in the 12th century AD.
Between 1856 and 1858 Sir Charles Newton and in 1865 G.M.A. Biliotti excavated the ancient ruins. An nowdays the British Museum in London now houses some examples of sculpture and relief's from the mausoleum. On the original site there is nothing left but ruins.
On this page I present my series of photographs of the frieze of the mausoleum which I have in the British Museum taken in July 1999. All images contain a short description of the depicted scene.
The relief's depict a battle between the Amazons and the Greek and were sculpted around 350 BC by four different artists.
For more information on the story behind the images see the link to the Perseus Project below.



The frieze can be read like a cartoon, hence the title of this article. The scenes are dramatic and dynamic

 

The images on this page are displayed in the order that they are displayed in the British Museum. The names refer to the inventory number of the British Museum. You can either click on of the links below or go to the site map to see thumbnail images of each fotograph.











MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSUS

F. Norman Pryce
1924


01391

B udrum is a small Turkish port, with a ruined castle of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, beautifully situated on the coast of the Gulf of Kos at the south-west angle of Asia Minor. The district was known in ancient times as Caria, and though nominally a province, or satrapy, of the great empire of Persia, its situation, shut of3! between the mountains and the sea at the extreme limits of the empire, secured for it a measure of independence. In the first half of the fourth century BCE the country was ruled by an active and warlike prince, Mausolus, who fixed his capital on the site of Budrum, anciently called Halicarnassus.

On his death, in the year 353 BCE, his devoted widow, Artemisia, resolved to perpetuate his memory and appease her own sorrow by erecting for him the most splendid tomb ever known, and sent to Greece to secure the services of the most renowned artists of the age. The names of the architects were Satyros and Pythios. The sculptors who were to adorn the structure were Scopas, the greatest Greek sculptor of the century—famed above all for his power to express in stone the most passionate emotions and the most vivid movement—Timotheos, Bryaxis, and Leochares, of whom less is now known, but who in their own age were considered second only to Scopas.

Queen Artemisia reigned for only two years, and then died, consumed by wasting grief for the loss of her husband. The tomb was then still unfinished, but the artists resolved to complete it as a labour of love "for their own fame and a record of their skill." The result was a work of such magnificence and splendour that it ranked as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and its name, the Mausoleum, has come generally to be employed to denote any elaborate sepulchre. Descriptions of the building have been handed down to us by more than one ancient writer, but, unfortunately, these are ambiguous and permit of interpretation in various ways, and the dimensions as recorded are suspected by some authorities.

There is thus considerable difference of opinion with regard to many details of the Mausoleum, and a large number of widely differing reconstructions have been produced. Generally speaking, however, the building was rectangular, with the short sides on the north and south; the lower storey, in which was the tombchamber, was solid; bans of sculpture ran round all four sides. Above this was a colonnade of thirty-six columns- of the Ionic order of rich golden-white marble, which was surmounted by a pyramid of twenty-four steps, and on the top of the pyramid was a chariot with four horses. The total height was one hundred and forty feet. What appeared to ancient sightseers the most remarkable feature of the building was the impression of lightness; the massive pyramid, poised on top of the slender colonnade, appeared to float in air. There is reason to believe that down to the twelfth century, or even later, the building survived practically undamaged. But in 1402 the Knights of St. John took possession of Halicarnassus and began to build on the site their castle of St. Peter.

To obtain the necessary building materials they pulled down the remains of the ancient city, and probably about this time the superstructures of the Mausoleum were destroyed. In 1472 the building was in ruins, and the last of these ruins was destroyed in 1522, when Sultan Suleiman was preparing his great expedition to drive the Knights out of Asia Minor and Rhodes. The Grand Master of the Order of St. John, realising the military importance of the castle at Budrum, ordered it to be put in repair. For this purpose the Knights broke up the base of the Mausoleum and burnt the marble blocks for lime.

While doing this they broke into a large square chamber elaborately adorned with slabs and bands of marbles of different colours, with battle scenes sculptured in relief. The story goes that the finders at first admired these, and then broke them up. They then penetrated into an inner chamber containing a sarcophagus. As night was coming on they returned to the castle, and in the morning when they returned they found that this tomb had been robbed during the night by unknown pirates or brigands. Thus the grave of Mausolus, after remaining inviolate for over eighteen centuries, was finally destroyed. Shortly afterwards the Knights of St. John were driven from Budrum by the Turks, and all recollection even of the site was lost.

Although this wholesale destruction is recorded of the Knights, yet at times a desire seems to have prevailed to preserve and save some fragments of the priceless sculptures which otherwise would have been fed to their lime-kilns. At some unknown date a slab of carved frieze was sent to Genoa; other slabs were built into the walls of the castle into which a number of marble lions were also inserted. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Western travellers and merchants passing through Budrum observed these fragments, and it was rightly concluded that they must have been taken from the Mausoleum. In 1846 Lord Stratford de Redeliffe, then British Ambassador at Constantinople, obtained permission of the Sultan to remove to the British Museum twelve slabs forming part of the large frieze showing the combat of Greeks and Amazons. In 1856 Sir Charles Newton was allowed to remove the lions and also to excavate on the actual site.

The excavation revealed little more than the foundations and ground plan, and it was evident that the Knights had destroyed everything above ground. Scattered about in the vicinity of the site, however, were discovered a large number of fragments of architecture and sculpture, which with great labour were brought to England and put together in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum.

The most striking of the sculptures thus recovered are the fragments of the chariot group which surmounted the pyramid. The top step of the pyramid has been preserved, showing a horse's hoof in position. Large portions of the colossal bodies of the marble horses, decked out with harness of gilded bronze still remain, and it is conjectured that the two portrait statues of Mausolus and Queen Artemisia stood originally in the chariot, thus crowning the whole edifice.

The portrait of Mausolus can be identified from his coins. It shows a bearded man, in the prime of life, richly robed, and with an expression of quiet dignity. The head of the companion statue is injured, so the identification as Artemisia, though extremely probable, is not certain; nor is it universally accepted that the statues did originally stand in the chariot. Some authorities have preferred to suppose that they formed part of the groups of statuary scattered about and within the building, of which numerous fragments have been found.

The other decorations of the Mausoleum take the form of three long bands of sculptured frieze which ran round the building, though the level at which they were applied cannot be determined. It has, however, been observed that the least important of the threc a frieze representing Greeks and Centaurs, of which very little remains - is less carefully finished than the others. Probably, therefore, it was placed high up, at some distance from the spectator's eye.

Of the other two friezes one is narrow and of very fineworkmanship, but it survives only in small fragments. The subject is a chariot race. The third is the best preserved of all. Twelve complete slabs were taken out of the walls of the castle in 1846; four additional slabs, the finest of all, and hundreds of fragments were discovered during the excavations; and yet one other slab was obtained from a palace in Genoa in 1865. Thus pieced together, the frieze occupies the whole length of the room in the British Museum.

As was the invariable custom with Greek architectural ornaments, the whole frieze was originally bright with colour: blue background, red flesh, white, green, and gold drapery. The weapons of the combatants and harness of the horses were of bronze, and the holes for this metal embellishment may be observed along the whole length. The figures are slenderly proportioned and broadly spaced out against the background, which thereby gives due eSect to a certain fondness for oblique lines which is visible in the pose of the figures, nearly all of which are either lunging forward or drawing back with one leg straightened out down to the ground-line. The result is a wonderful spring and movement beating rhythmically along the whole length of the frieze. Never has the rush of battle been rendered with more vigour.


Sculptures

London, British Museum:
Loewen vom Mausoleum




At the very top of the tomb was a twenty-four-step pyramid surmounted by a marble chariot twenty-five feet tall. The marble base contained a room in which both Mausolus, of whom the tomb was built for, and his wife Artemisia were to be entombed. The Mausoleum had a perimeter of 411 feet (125 meters). It was built to be known for its beauty, richness, and grace.

history.jpg (4169 bytes)

        The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was built in approximately 353 B.C., and it was said to be one of the finest buildings in all of Halicarnassus. The Mausoleum's construction was ordered by Queen Artemisia to be a tomb and monument of King Mausolus. After his death, Queen Artemisia resolved to build him the most immaculate tomb the world had ever seen. She sent for the most gifted artist of that time period. Sculptors like Scopas who had helped rebuild the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and others such as Timotheus Bryaxis and Leochares. The architects who answered Artemisia’s call were Satyros and Pythias. In building the tomb no effort was made to out do the pyramids. Two years after her husband's death and the construction of the tomb began, Queen Artemisa died. At this time the tomb was still incomplete, however the sculptors resolved to finish their work. The tomb became known as the mausoleum, and the word has passed into our language, as a word used to describe a large tomb. Earthquakes destroyed the Mausoleum in the fifteenth century, shattering the columns and sending the chariot crashing down.

         By 1404 AD only the square base remained intact, the rest of the stone was used by the Crusaders for building material. It was the Crusaders who discovered what was in the base of the monument, and it was during this time that a group of Crusaders ransacked the tomb stripping it of all its treasure. In 1897 a British archeologist named Newton began to excavate the remains. He found fragments of the chariot and uncovered statues of both Mausolos and Artemisia. The remains can be found in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum.



The Mausoleum overlooked the city of Halicarnassus for many centuries. It was untouched when the city fell to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. and still undamaged after attacks by pirates in 62 and 58 B.C.. It stood above the city ruins for some 17 centuries.

Then a series of earthquakes shattered the columns and sent the stone chariot crashing to the ground. By 1404 A.D. only the very base of the Mausoleum was still recognizable. Crusaders, who had occupied the city from the thirteen century onward, recycled the broken stone into their own buildings. In 1522 rumours of a Turkish invasion caused Crusaders to strengthen the castle at Halicarnassus (which was by then known as Bodrum) and much of the remaining portions of the tomb was broken up and used within the castle walls. Indeed sections of polished marble from the tomb can still be seen there today.

In 1846 the Museum sent the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton to search for more remains of the Mausoleum. He had a difficult job. He didn't know the exact location of the tomb and the cost of buying up all the small parcels of land in the area to look for it would have been astronomical. Instead Newton studied the accounts of ancient writers like Pliny to obtain the approximate size and location of the memorial, then bought a plot of land in the most likely location.

Digging down, Newton explored the surrounding area through tunnels he dug under the surrounding plots. He was able to locate some walls, a staircase, and finally three of the corners of the foundation. With this knowledge, Newton was able to figure out which plots of land he needed to buy.

Newton then excavated the site and found sections of the reliefs that decorated the wall of the building and portions of the stepped roof. Also a broken stone chariot wheel, some seven feet in diameter, from the sculpture on the roof was discovered. Finally, he found the statues of Mausolus and Artemisia that had stood at the pinnacle of the building.

Today these works of art stand in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum. There the images of Mausolus and his queen forever watch over the few broken remains of the beautiful tomb she built for him.

Today, the massive castle still stands in Bodrum, and the polished stone and marble blocks of the Mausoleum can be spotted within the walls of the structure. Some of the sculptures survived and are today on display at the British Museum in London. These include fragment of statues and many slabs of the frieze showing the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. At the site of the Mausoleum itself, only the foundation remains of the once magnificent Wonder.




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