Mausoleum at Halicarnassus

In The Conco Companies on-going series of blogs on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it brings us to one of most influential architectural structures throughout the course of history.  The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was constructed outside the city of Halicarnassus, which is now Bodrum, Turkey. When Mausolus, the ruler of a kingdom in the southwest region of Asia Minor, died in 353 BC; his wife Artemisia hired the most renowned architects and artist of the time to build the tomb for her husband.  The magnificent tomb became famous worldwide and is the origin of the word “mausoleum.”   

The shape of the Mausoleum was designed by two famous Greek architects, Pytheos and Satyros.  Other sculptures and artists such as Timotheus, Leochares and Scopas of Paros who was credited with rebuilding the Temple of Artemis worked on the tomb.  The historian Liny Bryaxis has written that the artists each decorated one side of the tomb, and gave it influences from Egyptian, Greek and Lycian cultures.     

Most of the tomb was constructed from marble and was believed to be around 140 feet tall.  It was rectangular and surrounded by a colonnade of thirty-six columns.  The topmost portion of the tomb was pyramid shaped and had four horse chariots in marble on top of it.  Throughout the structure were free standing figures on 5 or 6 different levels.  The tomb was destroyed in an earthquake in the 13th century.

Today many of our buildings have been influenced by the architectural design of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.  Wikipedia cites the following structures incorporate some elements of the tomb’s design: “the Civil Courts Building in St. Louis, MO, the National Newark Building in Newark, N.J., Grant's Tomb in New York City, Los Angeles City Hall, the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, the spire of St. George's Church of Bloomsbury in London, the Indiana War Memorial (and in turn Chase Tower) in Indianapolis, the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction's headquarters, the House of the Temple in Washington D.C., and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Pittsburgh, PA.” 

   

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Sources:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_at_Halicarnassus, unmuseum.org/maus.htm