Mausoleum in Halicarnassus brief information. Mausoleum in Halicarnassus. From dust it came, to dust it will turn
– was one of the most famous cities in Greece. Herodotus, the author of the famous “History,” was born and spent his youth here. Travelers were attracted by the ancient glory and architecture of one of the most beautiful cities in Asia Minor. The place of pilgrimage was the huge temple of the war god Ares with a majestic statue made of marble and gilded wood. Women strove for the temple of Aphrodite - the goddess of love and beauty - near which a wonderful fountain flowed, returning love to the abandoned, giving happiness to those who love and awakening feelings in those whose hearts had not yet known the power of Aphrodite. But most of all, the tomb of King Mausolus (who died in 353 BC), which was considered one of the wonders of the world, attracted people to Halicarnassus. This tomb combined the features of a Greek temple and an eastern pyramid. This tomb is called the Halicarnassus Mausoleum.
King Mausolus annexed a number of nearby regions and islands to Caria. The entire subject population was subject to numerous taxes, and the funds thus received were spent on the construction of a magnificent tomb, which at the same time was supposed to serve as a temple in which the king would be honored even after death. For its construction, Mausolus invited the best architects and sculptors of that time to Caria: Satyr, Pytheas, Scopas, Leoxapa, Timothy and Briaxidas.
Mausoleum project
According to the project, the mausoleum was supposed to be a rectangle 66 meters wide, 77 meters long and 46 meters high. Compositionally, it was divided into three parts:
- A rectangular pedestal in the form of a stepped pyramid - the actual tomb of the king and queen - should be crowned with a ribbon of marble reliefs encircling it.
- The second floor was supposed to be made in the form of a colonnade surrounding the temple premises.
- Its roof was supposed to be a pyramid of 24 steps. And at the top of the pyramid they were going to place a marble sculptural quadriga - a chariot drawn by four horses.
They intended to install 15 columns in the upper and lower rooms. In the lower part they should be Dorian - more massive, in the upper one - lighter, Corinthian. The outer colonnade should be composed of 36 Ionian columns. Thus, when building the mausoleum, they planned to use all three architectural orders.
It was planned to build the mausoleum in the center of the city, on one of its widest streets, and according to the plan, it was supposed to become the main attraction of Halicarnassus.
Halicarnassus Mausoleum (reconstruction)
Construction of the mausoleum
Marble for the construction of the mausoleum was mined in quarries. The blocks were cut down and sawed out with a special saw and lowered down on special wooden carts. Here the primary processing of marble was carried out in order to reduce its weight during transportation. Then the blocks were transported on carts drawn by oxen to the stone-masonry workshops.
When the individual parts were ready and the marble blocks were polished, the construction of the pedestal walls and the installation of columns on the second floor began. In order to raise the columns upward, wooden platforms on supports and special inclined planes, also made of wood, were built. A massive, richly decorated cornice was installed on the columns.
In the midst of work, King Mausolus suddenly died. His widow, Queen Artemisia, continued the work begun by her husband. The architect and sculptor Pytheas had to sculpt a huge statue of the king from marble. The queen's statue was apparently created by the famous sculptor Skopas, although a number of scholars question his authorship. He also probably made part of the relief frieze that decorated the western wall of the tomb. This frieze depicts a very popular mythological plot of Amazonomachy: the battles of Greek heroes with female warriors. 
King Mausol. Marble statue from the Halicarnassus Mausoleum (height 3 m)
At the bottom: Battle of the Greeks with the Amazons. Frieze of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
The friezes of the southern and eastern sides were created by the sculptors Briaxides, Timothy and Leoxar and depicted the battle of the Lapiths with the centaurs. And although the construction was not yet completed, crowds of curious travelers began to flock to Halicarnassus.
The authors of the project did not see its completion
Queen Artemisia did not live to see the completion of construction. The work continued under their son and Mausolus (who became the ruler of Halicarnassus), and ended under their grandson. The tomb aroused admiration and was revered as a wonder of the world.
After the defeat of the Persians by the army of Alexander the Great, Halicarnassus was plundered and destroyed by Macedonian soldiers. But the Halicarnassus Mausoleum, oddly enough, was not touched. It stood in the deserted city for 1800 years, until the 15th century, and, despite frequent earthquakes, remained unharmed. In the 15th century, the coast of Asia Minor was captured by the crusaders, who dismantled the mausoleum and built a stronghold on the ruins of Halicarnassus - St. Peter's Castle. The creations of the great masters of antiquity were used to build the walls of the fortress. After the Crusaders were expelled from Asia Minor by the Turks, the Turkish fortress of Budrun appeared on the site of ancient Halicarnassus.
In the middle of the 19th century, travelers noticed that within the walls of the Turkish fortress there were slabs with ancient bas-reliefs depicting the battle of heroes with the Amazons. A total of 12 such slabs were counted. The British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire obtained permission to break them out of the wall and send them for examination to the British Museum. Scientists have recognized the famous frieze of Skopas, which once adorned the walls of one of the famous wonders of the world - the tomb of King Mausolus
Halicarnassus Mausoleum. New life for ruins
The famous archaeologist and curator of the British Museum, Charles Newton, went to Budrun. After he discovered two marble statues of lions in the walls of the fortress, which once stood at the foot of the mausoleum, his last doubts disappeared.
For nine months, while the issue of permission to remove fragments of the tomb from the walls of the fortress was being resolved, Newton looked for the place where the tomb once stood. During this time, fragments of a marble chariot, fragments of statues of people, horses and lions were extracted from the thickness of silt and construction debris. As a result of persistent and painstaking work, the statue of King Mausolus, reaching 3 meters in height, as well as the statue of Artemisia, more than 2.5 meters in height, were almost completely restored.
After the Halicarnassus mausoleum was found, a thorough study of its remains began. All references to the mausoleum by ancient authors were collected. Based on this material, scientists together with architects tried to restore the appearance of the tomb of King Caria. And here there were some disagreements.
Research
According to one version, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was a temple with a roof in the form of a stepped pyramid, on top of which stood a quadriga in the form of a chariot and four horses, in which there were huge statues of Mausolus and Artemisia. The temple itself, according to these researchers, stood on a high pedestal, in the hall of which the sarcophagi of the king and queen were placed. And around the pedestal, which was the first floor, there were statues of lions and horsemen. But this option met with serious objections from authoritative scientists who carefully studied all written sources and archaeological materials on this problem and carried out mathematical calculations. 
They proposed their own version, according to which the mausoleum consisted of two pyramids (upper and lower) and a temple with a colonnade. The lower pyramid served as the base of the temple, and the upper one was the roof of the entire structure. It was crowned with a quadriga on top, but there were no statues of the king and queen. This, according to scientists, is fully consistent with the Greek tradition, according to which it was customary to place an empty chariot on funeral structures, which symbolized the death of the owner.
But the main argument in favor of the fact that the statues were not placed on a chariot, but stood on a low pedestal, is the manner of their execution. This is especially striking when comparing them with the figure of a horse from a quadriga. The horse is made taking into account the fact that it will be looked at from below from a great distance. And the statues of the royal couple were created from a normal perspective, without taking into account the location features.
After its dimensions were calculated from the fragments of the chariot, it became clear that the statues were too heavy and massive for it. In addition, the statues have carefully designed facial features, clothing details and even shoes, which would be completely unnecessary if they were placed in a quadriga at a great height. And then there would be no point in finishing the lower part of the statues at all, since the sides of the chariot would hide it up to the hip line.
All this indicates that the statues of the king and queen were not placed in a chariot, but stood on a pedestal somewhere on the lower platform, among many other statues, the fragments of which were discovered in the thickness of silt and construction debris, which hid the place where Here stood one of the greatest wonders of the Ancient World. This point of view is recognized as the most correct today.
Not far from the Turkish town of Bodrum is located one of the seven wonders of the world - the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. It was no coincidence that it arose in this place, because in ancient times the capital of the Persian satrapy of Caria, known as Halicarnassus, was located here.
Story
The city of Halicarnassus was founded by the Greeks in the 2nd millennium BC. e. In the middle of the 1st millennium it came under the rule of the Halicarnassus mausoleum, which was built in the 4th century. BC. as a tomb for the Carian satrap Mausolus (377-353 BC) and his wife Artemisia II. Thanks to Mausolus, this building began to be called a mausoleum (Greek: Mausoleion). The construction of the tomb began during Mavsol’s lifetime, although he did not live to see the completion of construction. According to legend, the construction of the mausoleum was led by Artemisia, who loved her husband very much and dreamed of perpetuating his memory. Therefore, the Halicarnassus Mausoleum is often called a monument to love. It attracts thousands of tourists.
The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus captivated the imagination of travelers for 1,800 years, but in the 13th century it was destroyed by a strong earthquake. In the 15th century, the Crusaders built St. Peter's Castle on the ruins of the mausoleum. Marble blocks from the former tomb were used to construct this building. When the Crusaders were expelled, this castle became the Turkish fortress of Bodrum. By the 19th century, all that remained of the mausoleum was the foundation and several sculptures. still stands in Bodrum today, and the stones of the mausoleum are visible in its structure. On the territory of the tomb itself you can see ruins and a small museum of the history of Halicarnassus.
Architecture
The mausoleum in Halicarnassus simultaneously played the role of a temple and a tomb. Its construction was carried out by architects from Greece Satyr and Pytheas. An equally important role in the creation of the mausoleum was played by the likes of Skopas, Bricasides, Leochares and Timofey.
As for architecture, there was a mixture of styles in this building. In addition, the tomb of Mausolus was distinguished by its unusual shape and gigantic size. The area of the Halicarnassus mausoleum was 5000 m², and the height was 20 m. The base was a 5-tier rectangle, which was lined with white marble slabs. The building was decorated with a sculptural frieze - marble reliefs depicting the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons. The length of the described frieze was 117 m. Now some of the reliefs of the tomb are in
The tomb was located in a peripterum, which was placed on the base. He, in turn, was surrounded by 39 11-meter columns. They served as a support for the roof. The latter was designed in the form of 24 steps. At the top of the roof, the architects placed a marble quadriga. It was an antique chariot drawn by four horses. It contained sculptures of Mausolus and Artemisia. Marble sarcophagi of the royal couple were placed inside the tomb. The statues of horsemen and marble lions located at the foot of the mausoleum served as an excellent addition to the building. The Halicarnassus mausoleum was not like all the tombs that existed before it, so it was quite rightly considered a wonder of the world.
Seven Wonders of the World- these words have become firmly established in everyday life. They are used when they want to emphasize the outstanding merits of either a work of art, or a grandiose structure, or a scientific discovery. More often than others, ancient authors included among the seven wonders of the world:
was contemporary with the second temple of Artemis. Moreover, the same craftsmen took part in their construction and decoration. The best masters of that time.
Formally speaking, this mausoleum is also a monument to love, like the Babylonian Gardens or the Indian Taj Mahal. But if the Median princess could hardly bring harm to humanity, even if she wanted to, and it is more pleasant for everyone to think that she was sweet, kind and worthy of such a monument, then grave suspicions have long arisen regarding Mausolus. Prosper Merimee, speaking about Halicarnassus, the capital of Caria, a glorious city famous for the birthplace of Herodotus, wrote: “Mausolus knew how to squeeze the juices out of the peoples under his control, and not a single shepherd of the people, in the language of Homer, knew how to shear his flock more smoothly. In his domains, he extracted income from everything: even for burial he established a special tax... He introduced a tax on hair. He accumulated enormous wealth. These riches and the constant relations of the Carians with the Greeks explain why the tomb of Mausolus was numbered by the latter among the seven wonders of the world."
But in Caria there was still one person who loved the king - his sister and wife (a frequent custom - also happened in ancient Egypt) Artemisia. And when, having reigned for twenty-four years, Mausolus died, Artemisia was heartbroken.
“They say that Artemisia had extraordinary love for her husband,” wrote Aulus Gellius, “a love that defies description, love unparalleled in the annals of the world... When he died, Artemisia, hugging the corpse and shedding tears over him, ordered him to be transferred from with incredible solemnity to the tomb, where he was burned. In a fit of great grief, Artemisia then ordered the ashes to be mixed with incense and ground into powder, this powder was then poured into a bowl of water and drank. In addition, her fiery love for the deceased was expressed in another way. Regardless of any costs, she erected a wonderful tomb in memory of her late husband, which was ranked among the seven wonders of the world."
Obviously the Roman historian is not entirely accurate. The fact is that Artemisia died two years after Mausolus. The last months of her reign passed in continuous wars, where she showed herself to be an excellent military leader and, despite the difficult situation of little Caria, surrounded by enemies, she was able to preserve her husband’s kingdom. At the same time, it is known that Alexander the Great, twenty years after the death of Mausolus, which was marked in Caria by a desperate struggle for power, unrest and palace coups, examined the mausoleum ready and fully decorated. It would be more accurate to assume that construction of the mausoleum began during the lifetime of Mausolus and Artemisia only completed it. After all, a construction of this scale should have taken several years.
Unlike the Temple of Artemis of Ephesus and other similar buildings in Asia Minor, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, preserving in many ways Greek traditions and construction techniques, bears a clear influence of Eastern architecture - there are no prototypes for it in Greek architecture, but the mausoleum had many followers: similar structures subsequently were erected in different areas of the Middle East.
The architects built a tomb for the tyrant of Halicarnassus in the form of an almost square building, the first floor of which was the actual tomb of Mausolus and Artemisia. On the outside, this huge burial chamber, with an area of 5,000 square meters and a height of about 20 meters, was lined with slabs of white marble, hewn and polished in the Persian manner. Along the top of the first floor there was a frieze - the battle of the Hellenes with the Amazons - "Amazonomachy" by the great Skopas. In addition to Scopas, according to Pliny, Leochares, Briaxides and Timothy worked there. On the second floor, surrounded by a colonnade, sacrifices were kept, and the roof of the mausoleum was a pyramid topped with a marble quadriga: in a chariot drawn by four horses, there were statues of Mausolus and Artemisia. Around the tomb were statues of lions and galloping horsemen.
The mausoleum marked the decline of classical Greek art. Apparently he was too rich and formal to be truly handsome. Even in reconstruction drawings it seems as heavy and static as Persian tombs - there is more of the East in it than of Greece. Perhaps the pyramid is to blame, perhaps the blank high walls of the lower floor. For the first time in Greek art, all three famous orders were combined. The lower floor was supported by fifteen Doric columns, the internal columns of the upper floor were Corinthian and the external Ionic.
Pliny claims that the mausoleum reached a height of one hundred and twenty-five cubits, that is, sixty meters; other authors give either larger or smaller figures.
The mausoleum stood in the center of the city, descending to the sea. Therefore, from the sea it was visible from afar and looked advantageous next to the other temples of Halicarnassus - the colossal sanctuary of Ares, the temples of Aphrodite and Hermes, which stood higher on the hill, on the sides of the mausoleum.
Throughout the ancient world, copies and imitations of the mausoleum in Halicarnassus were built, but, as befits copies, they were less successful and therefore were soon forgotten. It became so famous that the Romans called all large tombs mausoleums. The mausoleum was built so firmly that, although dilapidated, it stood for almost two thousand years. And how the mausoleum died is known from the chronicle of a historian of the late Middle Ages, which talks about the last days of the Order of St. John on the island of Rhodes.
“In 1522, when Sultan Suleiman was preparing to attack the Rhodians, the Grand Master, in view of warning of danger, sent several knights to put the fortifications in order and, as far as possible, prevent the landing of the enemy. Arriving in Mesina (that was the name of Halicarnassus), the knights immediately set to work strengthening the castle. In the absence of suitable materials, they used marble slabs and blocks that made up an ancient, dilapidated building near the harbor. Removing block after block, after a few days they reached a cave. They saw a beautiful quadrangular hall, decorated with marble columns, cornices and various ornaments. The spaces between the columns were filled with decorations made of various marbles, along the walls and on the ceiling one could see marble reliefs depicting various scenes and even entire battles. Marveling at all this, the knights, however, took advantage of this material, as well as the external Behind this hall they found another, smaller one, into which a low door led. In this room they saw a quadrangular marble tombstone with an urn standing on it. This monument was made very skillfully from white marble, which glowed marvelously in the darkness. The knights who entered did not have the opportunity to stay there longer, since at that time the summoning bell rang. Returning the next day, they saw the monument destroyed and the grave open. Pieces of gold brocade and gold plates were scattered on the ground. This led them to assume that the pirates who scurried off the coast entered there at night and found a lot of jewelry..."
This is how the only reliable description of the burial hall of the mausoleum has reached us, made from the words of archaeologists “on the contrary” - the last ones who saw the mausoleum standing and did everything to ensure that nothing remained of the monument.
In the middle of the 19th century, travelers to Asia Minor noticed that the walls of the Turkish fortress of Budrun, rebuilt from the Ionnite castle of St. Peter, were made not so much of stone blocks as of marble. This is not surprising: the remains of ancient cities have always served as building material, first for the Byzantines, and then for the Arabs and Turks. But the marble slabs of the walls of Budrun were very beautiful and unusual: an unknown genius populated their bas-reliefs with frantic people and gods.
When rumors about this reached the English ambassador in Turkey, he came to Budrun and, after long negotiations and many bribes, bought permission to break twelve slabs from the walls and transport them to the British Museum. English scientists, based on surviving descriptions and reviews from contemporaries, soon realized that this was part of the famous frieze of Skopas - “Amazonomachy”.
Convinced that the Halicarnassus Museum should be sought in Budrun, Sir Newton, curator of the British Museum, hurried there. The first thing he saw when he landed on the shore were two marble lions inserted into the wall of the fortress with their faces towards the sea. Lions were also once borrowed by the crusaders for military construction. Newton wasted no time. He crawled around the entire fortress, looking for and identifying “stolen” plates and statues. While waiting, as always, for a long time, permission to remove the slabs, he began to look for the place where the mausoleum once stood, which was supposed to be located not far from the fortress. Otherwise, there would be no point for the ionnites to carry slabs and blocks from there.
During the nine months spent in Budrun, Newton found the fragments of the mausoleum, and under a layer of earth and debris - four more slabs of Skopas. When the excavations came to an end, they discovered the most important find - the two-meter statues of Mausolus and Artemisia, split into many parts, which had previously stood in a chariot, on top of the mausoleum, and which resolved all doubts, an almost whole marble horse head, almost a meter long, with a bronze gilded bridle and pendants - decorations. The surprising thing is that the head turned out to be deformed. Newton guessed that the horses harnessed to the chariot of the Carian monarchs stood at a height of sixty meters. This explained the disproportion: the horses had to be looked at from a distance and from below.
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MAUSOLEUM IN HALICARNASSUS- one of the most majestic monuments of Greek architecture of the late classics, a magnificent tomb built in the 4th century. BC. in the capital of the small Carian state, Halicarnassus (southeast of Asia Minor). It is considered one of the so-called “seven wonders of the world”. The mausoleum was built by order of the ruler of Caria, Mausolus (reigned 377–353 BC), who, during his lifetime, began the construction of this tomb in Halicarnassus for himself and his wife Artemisia II. The building later became known as a mausoleum (Greek: Mausoleion) named after King Mausolus. The king himself did not live to see the completion of construction.
Conceived as a tomb and temple, the mausoleum, built by the Greek architects Pytheas and Satyr, was a peripterus on a high plinth, topped by a pyramid and a quadriga. For the first time in Greek architecture, the architecture of the Halicarnassus mausoleum combined three different orders: Greek, Ionic and Corinthian. The lower floor was supported by 15 Doric columns, the inner columns of the upper floor were Corinthian, and the outer ones were Ionic. At the base of this gigantic structure lay a five-tiered rectangle, lined with white marble slabs and decorated on top with a 117 m long sculptural frieze - marble reliefs. On the base there was a peripterus - a tomb with a cella for sacrifices; it was surrounded by 39 eleven-meter columns. The roof of the mausoleum was a stepped pyramid of 24 steps, on top of which stood a quadriga - a marble chariot drawn by four horses, with sculptures of Mausolus (by Pytheas) and his wife Artemisia (by Skopas). In the peripterus tomb there were marble sarcophagi of the king and queen. At the foot of the tomb there were marble statues of horsemen and lions by Leochares, Timothy, Briaxides. Construction was completed only under the grandson of King Mavsol. The structure was so unlike all previous tombs that it was called “mausoleum” after the name of its creator.
The mausoleum stood for approximately 1800 years and was then destroyed by a powerful earthquake. In the 15th century The coast of Asia Minor was captured by the crusaders, who in 1489 built St. Peter's Castle on the ruins of the mausoleum, using its marble blocks to build the castle. Having expelled the crusaders, the Turks built the Bodrum fortress on this site. In the middle of the 19th century. 12 marble reliefs embedded in the walls of this Turkish fortress were removed from it and transported to the British Museum.
The Mausoleum in Halicarnassus is one of the seven wonders of the world - the most famous monuments of sculpture and architecture, described by ancient historians and travelers, incl. “father of history” Herodotus (b. c. 484 – d. c. 425 BC) in his Stories. This number, along with the mausoleum in Halicarnassus (4th century BC), also includes the ancient Egyptian pyramids (3 thousand BC), the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (7th century BC), the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus ( Asia Minor, c. 550 BC), Colossus of Rhodes (statue of Helios on Rhodes, c. 292–280 BC), statue of Zeus in Olympia (Greece, c. 430 BC. ), lighthouse on Faros Island in Alexandria (Egypt, 3rd century BC).
Almost entirely only the pyramids have survived to this day. Near the city of Hilla in Iraq there are ruins of vaulted structures: apparently, “hanging gardens” were laid out on their roofs. The British Museum in London contains fragments of sculpture from the Halicarnassus mausoleum (sculptors Scopas, Timofey, Briaxis, Leochares). From the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (Ionian dipter), rebuilt by architect. Heirokrat, the foundations have been preserved. Other “wonders of the world” are known only from images and descriptions.
They say that Mausolus, the ruler of Caria, was such a powerful and proud ruler that during his lifetime he decided to build himself a luxurious tomb. Maybe not as huge as those of the Egyptian rulers, but no less luxurious and magnificent. In a word, a real wonder of the world.
According to the plan of the ruler of Caria, the tomb would not only serve as a tomb for him and his wife, but also be a temple in which local residents would pay honor to the deceased ruling couple. He was not afraid of the wrath of the Greek gods, whose temples were nearby, or of public opinion - and allocated the best place in the city for the construction, inviting the most famous architects and sculptors of ancient Hellas.
Mausolus reigned from 377 to 353. BC e in Caria (modern Bodrun, Türkiye). Many historians agree that he was an extremely wise and perspicacious ruler - despite the difficult political situation, for many years he managed to remain in power and maintain the relative independence of his country.
He also moved the capital of Caria from the ancient city of Milas to the young but promising Halicarnassus, located on the Mediterranean coast, where he lived and ruled together with his wife Artemisia, who was also his sister (it should be noted that similar marriages among aristocrats like Caria , and Rome, were not uncommon).
They lived together for almost a quarter of a century, and contemporaries claim that Artemisia loved her husband very much - even despite the fact that he was so cruel that he became known as a tyrant, and ruled imperiously and stubbornly, trying not to bend under the pressure of Persia (at that time - this state was its colony).
On the other hand, perhaps it was this character trait that gave him the opportunity to maintain the relative independence of his state and even capture part of Asia Minor (it is interesting that he did not have a regular army and always used mercenary troops).
Mausolus was an ardent admirer of Greek culture, and therefore gathered around him many talented Greeks, both writers and architects, thanks to whom the capital of Caria became known as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
What Halicarnassus looked like
The capital of Caria was located at the foot of the mountains on the Mediterranean coast, and a small but well-fortified harbor was built on the shore. Not far from the pier there was a bazaar, where they also sold overseas curiosities. Behind the market square, towards the mountains, wide streets with residential buildings were built.
The palace of Mausolus was located so that all approaches to Halicarnassus were clearly visible from it - both from land and from the sea (therefore, in the event of an attack, Mausolus would have known about it almost immediately).
The ruler's house and the buildings around it (which were mainly the theater and temples of the gods) were surrounded by stone walls, the length of which was about six kilometers. They were erected with one single purpose - to ensure better security for the ruler.
The central street ran at a slight slope towards the mountains. At the end of it, already on the slope, was the temple of Ares, on the right - Aphrodite and Hermes. The main building of Halicarnassus, the mausoleum, was located in the middle of the main street.
The world's first mausoleum
To build the mausoleum in Halicarnassus (construction began around 359 BC), the ruler and his wife invited the most eminent architects and sculptors of Greece, who, working on the building design (mainly the architects Satyr and Pytheas), accepted the decision to combine three traditional styles of Greek architecture - Corinthian, Doric and Ionic.
The unique tomb turned out to be the first building in the world where all the main architectural trends of ancient Hellas were used in decoration (moreover, after the completion of work in the mausoleum, features of Asian temples were also visible). And the amazing tomb went down in history as one of the Seven Wonders of the World - not so much because of its size and beauty, but because of its unique design and interior decoration.
An interesting fact is that each sculptor was assigned his own area of work:
- The mausoleum in Halicarnassus was decorated on the eastern side by Skopas;
- from the west - Leohar;
- from the north - Briaxid;
- from the south - Timofey;
- the marble chariot on the roof was created by Pytheas.
The height of one of the seven wonders of the world was 46 m, and the base area had dimensions of 66 by 77 m. The mausoleum was guarded from the outside by horsemen and lions. The first floor on the façade side was richly decorated with sculptures of gods, and in the middle - with mythical statues and bas-reliefs (hunting, war with the Amazons, battle of the Lapiths with the centaurs). The mausoleum at Halicarnassus had three tiers.
The first floor was built from bricks and decorated from the inside with white marble slabs. Here, in one of the rooms, there was a tomb, where the ashes of Mausolus were first buried, then Artemisia, after which the entrance to the room was walled up.
On the second floor there was a sanctuary with 36 columns, each of which was about seven meters high - a place for worshiping the deceased ruling couple. Especially for this purpose, sculptures of Mausolus and Artemisia made by Skopas were installed here (it is noteworthy that both statues have survived to this day and are currently considered the best sculptures of Greek culture of the 4th century BC).
A roof was installed on the columns, built in the shape of a stepped pyramid (24 steps in total). At its top there was a huge marble chariot with four harnessed horses, the drivers of which were Mausolus and Artemisia (according to approximate data, the height of the monument was about six meters).
Death of Mausolus
The ruler of Caria never saw his tomb: he died several years earlier, without waiting for the completion of construction work, in approximately 353 BC. His body was cremated before being buried. According to rumors, Artemisia loved her husband so much that she ordered some of his ashes to be mixed with aromatic substances and water - and drank the mixture in the hope that she would leave after him.
This did not happen, and she outlived her husband for another two years. This time was enough for her to almost complete the construction of the wonder of the world - the work in the middle was already completed, and the sculptors were just working on the bas-reliefs on the outside of the building. Like the body of Mausolus, the remains of the ruler were burned and buried near her husband, and the construction of the mausoleum was completed around 531 BC.
Mausoleum collapse
The mausoleum in Halicarnassus existed in the world for quite a long time - about nineteen centuries. He not only survived the capture of the country by Alexander the Great, but also saw the decline of the capital and its transformation into a small settlement. But in the 13th century, a powerful earthquake did its job and almost completely destroyed it.
And some time later, in the 16th century, the crusaders who came here finally dismantled the tomb and used marble slabs and stones to build the Church of St. Petra, which still stands today.
The contents of the mausoleum, including the golden urns containing the remains of the long-dead couple, disappeared forever. The facts say that the knights should not be completely blamed: archaeological excavations have shown that secret passages under the mausoleum appeared much earlier than the crusaders came here - and it is unlikely that they appeared just like that, there was definitely something to profit from here.