The private mausoleum of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses The Great is located in the Valley of the Kings. This final resting place of a God-King bears the cryptic for a burial site name - Tomb KV7.
There is not really much left of the burial chamber - flash floods damaged it badly destroying much of the decoration beyond repair. None of the famous monuments erected by mausoleum architects survived either.
However, Ramesses II still lucked out because his mummy is still safe and sound. It is exhibited in the Cairo’s Egyptian Museum. How did it happen?
It turns out that Tomb KV7 did not have pharaoh’s body for thousands of years. In fact, the mummy was found by archeologists in another location quite by chance.
Several centuries passed after Ramesses died. The looting of the ancient tombs was on the rise. Egyptian priests decided to take drastic measures in order to preserve mummies of the great pharaohs. They developed a big plan that can easily be used as a plot of a great detective story.
Priests removed pharaoh from the tomb, rewrapped it all over again and transferred it to the tomb of the queen Amhose Inhapy from the 17th dynasty of ancient Egypt. But, obviously, it was not good enough, as within 72 hours priests removed Ramessess from that burial site and placed it in the tomb of High Priest of Amun at Thebes, named Pinedjem II who died in 10th century B.C.
We learned about these multiple reburials because priests recorded them in hieroglyphics on the linen covering the mummy of Ramesses. Yet, this is not the end of the story. Driven by unknown to us events, priests gathered the whole pile of other mummies and left it in the same tomb. When it was discovered in 1881 archeologists discovered other famous pharaohs of 18th and 19th dynasties, including the mummy of Ramesses’ own father.
The discovery of this unintentional family mausoleum led to the largest studies of famous pharaohs. Thanks to this massive entombment we know how the most powerful pharaohs looked like and even establish the cause of death.
Unique mausoleums built by Egyptian pharaoh Sneferu does not attract many tourists. It is pity, because Sneferu’s pyramids pre-date the latter ones constructed in Giza. They represent a tribute to architectural searches and titanic efforts of the ancient civilizations.
Centuries after pharaoh Sneferu had been gone, his ruling was viewed as the gold age of Egypt. He is depicted as a wise and generous ruler of the Fourth Dynasty who build up many temples and buildings. Sneferu is also a father of the ancient Egyptian fleet: fourty of his boats were importing cedar from Lebanon. Other ships would travel to further places like Livia, Nubia and Sinai.
During his life Sneferu constructed not just one but three pyramids as mausoleums. He transformed old step pyramid of his predecessor pharaoh Hunu to a true pyramid. He also built a famous personal mausoleum known as a Bent Pyramid - a unique example of early pyramid development. Bent Pyramid has a mysterious small satelite pyramid of unknown purpose and a a small temple on eastern side of it.
Sneferu was not happy with Bent Pyramid and considered it imperfect. That is why he started a third mausoleum which is known to us as Red Pyramid. It is the 4th largest pyramid after the ones in Giza. While Sneferu’s pyramids are smaller, the total volume of stone used in Sneferu’s monuments is the larges of all pharaohs.
At the time of its completion, Red Pyramid was the tallest man made structure in the world! Many centuries later granite mausoleum’s surface became exposed to the surface. Its light crimson hue gave name to Sneferu’s final resting place.
Currently, Sneferu’s mausoleums are considered transitonal from step pyramids to the smooth ones that we are all familiar with. It is evident, though, that Sneferu’s successful ruling dramatically expanded search for architectural solutions in construction of personal and family mausoleums.
Even before ancient Egyptians invented pyramids as the private mausoleums for their late pharaohs, our world knew similar constructions albeit for slightly different purposes. In the 4th millennium BC in Mesopotamian valley people were building first known to us custom mausoleums known as ziggurats.
At first ziggurats were built as the simple raised platforms and sometime after turned into a form of a terraced pyramid with a flat top. The construction material was not the granite or stones but sun-baked bricks. Unlike Egyptians pyramids, they were not burial places and did not have an internal chambers. These custom mausoleums were the dwelling places for gods.
Ancient Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians believed that through ziggurats gods could be close to mankind, therefore these temples represented a connection between heaven and earth. Only the chosen ones could communicate with gods on the top of these unique mausoleums. They were high priests of anicent Sumeria.
In the ancient times one could find a mausoleum of this type all around Mesopotamia. But now archeologists discovered only 32 of them. Priests would access the top of the ziggurat via three special staircases. There they would conduct special rituals and sacrifice animals to their gods in the special shrines.
We find mentions of these ancient believes on the pages of the Old Testament in the story about the Babylon Tower. Famous kings Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar were actively engaged in the construction of their own ziggurats that were marvels of the human genius in the ancient times.
In the modern times famous architects got inspired by the ziggurats and built great buildings in the same style of a step pyramid. Among these modern ziggurats are National Geographic Society in Washington, DC and Gold Vault in Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Somehow when people mention pyramids that served as tombs or mausoleums for royalty, we tend to think of Ancient Egypt and its monumental structures. However, this is not the case: it seems that ancient pyramids were built in different parts of the world and served as memorials and monuments to people.
For example, in ancient Nubia - ancient land that was located in the present day Sudan, there were 220 pyramids built for kings and queens. This number tremendously exceeds 120 pyramids constructed in the ancient Egypt for the period of three thousand years!
Nubia was always heavily influenced by the traditions of ancient Egypt. Its kingdoms located in the Nile valley even competed strongly with Egypt and at some point conquered it. The Nubian kings unified Egypt and became pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty and ruled until the powerful Assyrian kingdom conquered Egypt in 656 BC.
Nubian pyramids built with stone blocks range from 6 to 30 meters high. Their width is relatively small and narrow comparing to their northern neighbors that were up to five times larger.
All Nubian pyramids were all plundered long time ago but archeologists have strong proof that royalty in mausoleums were mummified and wore lots of jewelry. 14 pyramids were built for Nubian warrior queens who successfully ruled their kingdom and added new territories to their land. And the largest pyramid is the final resting place for one of the last Nubian pharaohs of Egypt named Taharqa.
Even before the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, that kind of structures existed even though they could not compete with the former one in their beauty, excess of lavishness. Probably, mastaba tombs can be considered the earliest mausoleums that ever existed on Earth.
Mastaba was a type of tomb where early Egyptian pharaohs and high nobility were buried. It is rectangular in shape and looks from the distance as a bench (this is how this word, actually translated from Arabic). Under this structure priests would lay down a dead body in a deep sealed chamber. In order to preserve the remains, ancient Egyptians invented artificial mummification.
Ancient Egyptians did not have cemeteries or graveyards. So, mastaba also served as a type of funeral memorial. It had a fake door where the family of the deceased and the priests would conduct regular funeral rituals, leave gifts, including food.
There are still a lot of early mastaba tombs in the Abydos It is interesting to note that famous Egyptian pyramids are actually descendants of mastaba. In fact, one of the earliest pyramids represents several mastabas put one on top of the other. It is known by the name Step Pyramid.
Luckily we know the name of the famous architect who converted mastaba into the first pyramid. His name was Imhotep and he lived in the 27th century BC and was a chancellor and high priest of pharaoh Djoser. And this is not all. He is also credited with invention of ancient Egyptian medicine.
Obviously, he was such a genius, that ancient Egyptians believed he became a god after his death. Popular adventure movie Mummy and its sequel are loosely based on the life of Imhotep. Archeologists still search for the location of Imhotep’s tomb but as of now its location is still unknown.
Mausoleum is a building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person. Its plural form is mausolea, although in America we commonly use for plural - mausoleums. What is the origin of the word? It was derived from the name of King Mausollos, ruler of ancient kingdom of Caria. His tomb - Mausoleum - was such an architectural marvel that it was considered to be the greatest aesthetic triumph. Ancients thought of it as the highest achievement and called it one of the Seven Wonders of the Word.
