City of the Dead is not just the name of several horror movies, this place actually exists. It is a four miles long area stretching from northern to southern part of Cairo, Egypt. City of the Dead is a weird hybrid of a gigantic cemetery with funeral monuments, tombs and mausoleums, and a home to people who live and work among their dead ancestors.
City of the Dead has old funeral traditions and in some ways it is a unique place of funeral alternatives as well. This historical necropolis dates back to the 7th century AD. Many famous Arab emirs and Mamluk rulers are buried here. In Middle Ages hundreds of custodians who were looking after noble burial monuments and family mausoleums.
Even after the conquest of Egypt by Ottomans City of the Dead still served as a place where the new governors - pashas chose to make this place their final resting place.
However, as the years rolled by, prestige of City of the Dead declined. Many impoverished Egyptians from overcrowded Cairo, peasants and farmers from nearby villages moved in settled right among the dead.
If you like history and classical music and accidentally find yourself in Austria, you would, probably, want to visit the burial plots of such famous composers as Beethoven, Brahms, Gluck and Strauss. The good thing is you won’t have to go through various places as their burial plots are located located in one and the same cemetery named Zentralfriedhof.
This largest and most famous Austrian cemetery is situated in Vienna and spans 2.4 square kilometers. Zentralfriedhof opened in 1874. It is the second largest European cemetery after Hamburg’s Ohlsdorf Cemetery which spans over 4 square kilometers in Germany. However, as of today Zentralfriedhof has almost 3,5 million dead people buried there, which makes it the the first one in Europe because it is largest by number of interred people.
Zentralfriedhof consists of Catholic, Protestant, Russian Orthodox and Jewish cemeteries. It is a part of European cultural heritage. Among upright headstones, mausoleums, big and small memorial monuments, one can find grave markers of famous architects, aviation pioneers, poets and writers, actors and opera singers. The video presents the cemetery with the tribute to famous rock singer Falco from the 80s who was also buried here.
The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun opened the modern era of Egyptology in 1922. Boy-king Tut’s private mausoleum and the burial site were practically intact, although grave robbers that did not leave a stone unturned in all other ancient cemeteries, crypts and entombments of Egyptian nobility. Final resting place of Tutahkhamun, son of revolutionary pharaoh Akhenaten, was completely overlooked in the gigantic graveyard - Valley of the Kings.
So, why Tut’s mausoleum tomb was not robbed? Archeologists claim that there were two attempts of robbery but, obviously, they occured within months of the initial burial of Tutankhamun. There is evidence that stolen items were restored in the burial chumber, meaning that the attempts obviously failed .
However, it seems that shortly after his death ninetten year old pharaoh’s name was completely forgotten and vanished from public consciousness in Egypt. The stones from other tombs safely hid his resting place, and the whereabouts of his burial site was lost for thousands of years. In fact, Tut’s tomb entrance was always close by proximity to the temporary huts of the workers in the Valley of the kings. But they did not even suspect that such a treasure was within their grasp.
Tutankhamon still rests in his climate controlled mausoleum in the Valley of the Kings. Forgotten in the past, Tut’s name, his artifacts and the tomb is the best known to the world public. It is the most exhibited too. His name even entered the popular culture if you remember Steve Martin’s song and the villain character of King Tut in the 60s Batman TV series.
Among the prominent modern mausoleums around the world, there is a famous one in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. It is a usual place of visit of the dignitaries and officials from foreign countries. This Pakistani national masoleum complex is called in Urdu language Mazar-e-Quaid. Inside it, there is a tomb of the founder of Pakistan - Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
The mausoleum complex including the monuments was completed in the 1960s. However, its arcitechtual design has an interesting history. It was borrowed from the past. In fact, tthis white marble mausoleum construction is the replica of the funeral complex built in Central Asia between 892 and 943. This famous original is called Samanid mausoleum. It is located in modern city of Bukhara, Uzbekistan on the burial site of even more ancient cemetery.
Mazar-e-Quaid is elevated on 54 metres platform and has an inner cool sanctum. The burial chamber contains an impressive four-tiered crystal chandelier presented to Pakistan from the Republic of China. The memorial park that surrounds it can also be considered a cemetery complex as it serves as the place of entombment for most prominent people of Pakistan, including the first prime minister of this country.
At nights, the mausoleum is glowing and can be seen for miles, as strong-beamed lights in the memorial park are reflected from its white surface. On special occasions, grand military and official Pakistani ceremonies are taking place here as well.
One of the most interesting modern mausoleums has been located in Central Java province which is a part of the Republic of Indonesia. It is a grand mausoleum complex for the Suharto family named Astana Giribangun which is translated from Javanese into English as a “Palace of Arisen Mountain”.
Suharto was a second president of Indonesia who ruled his country with an iron hand from 1967 to 1998 and passed away in January 2008. His mausoleum construction and subsequent entombment partially occupies a huge cemetery and memorial park famous for the burial sites of the royal Java kings and their families.
The history of the mausoleum is the following. President Suharto chose this place for construction before his death because this exact location is considered a powerful magical place by many Indonesian spiritualists and soothsayers. The granite mausoleum building was created in traditional Javanese architectural style to serve as last place for the remains of Suharto’s late wife and her mother in 1996.
Moving the crypts of his relatives to the the mosoleum instead of the regular cemetery lots led to the huge controversy in the Indonesian and, especially, Javanese society. Some thought that Suharto’s wife should not have been buried at this sacred place as she was not of true royal blood but a simple commoner.
Eventually, this incident grew as a snowball and ended in court. The decision of the court was even more astounding. It allowed president Suharto to have the mosoleum complex and family monuments at the cemetery but they should not be higher than existing royal tombs.
This the incident was resolved and in January 2008 president died and joined his relatives in the mausoleum, where he was buried with full state military honors.
Everybody in the world heard about Arlington National Cemetery - the largest military cemetery in the United States. It was established during the Civil War and since that time over 290,000 people were buried there. It may come as news, but there are also two family mausoleums in Arlington National Cemetery.
These are the only two mausoleums located in the borders of the cemetery. The first family mausoleum is the final burial place for many descendants and members of the Miles Family. And the second one belongs to the Sullivan Family.
Lieutenant General Nelson Appleton Miles served for 42 years in the United States Army. He fought in the Civil War, Indian Wars and Spanish-American war. He was already old when the World War 1 began but he still volunteered to serve in the army. President Wilson turned Miles down due to his age. General Miles died in 1925 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery at the first mausoleum confined within this area.
Brigadier General Thomas Crook Sullivan whose final resting place is in the second mausoleum in the confines of Arlington National Cemetery land a long lasting military career too. He was a guard for president Abraham Lincoln during his inauguration. Then Sullivan served during the Civil War participating in many decisive battles. General Sullivan died in 1908 and after the cremation his remains were buried in the mausoleum of the Arlington National Cemetery.
It seems that both personal mausoleums are destined to be the only ones on this famous cemetery. Since 1925, none of other deceased American war heroes and veterans ever received such a prestigious burial place.
Only for several days every year public can visit one the most remarkable places in Great Britain - Hamilton Palace Mausoleum. It is the family mausoleum that is a part of the Hamilton Palace complex which is the largest non-royal residence in the western world. Mausoleum design was developed in the middle of 19th century by David Hamilton and the whole structure was completed in 1858 by architects David Bryce and Alexander Richie. Originally, the 10th Duke Hamilton planned this Roman-style burial place to be a private mausoleum for his family members on his land in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Inside the mausoleum, the 10th Duke Hamilton was buried in a sarcophagus, built in the ancient Egyptian style. The remains of almost two dozen of his ancestors were buried in the crypt below. Later, during the big flooding from river Clyde, the human remains of this grand and unique mausoleum were moved out of this entombment and re-buried in the local cemetery.
The grand marble and granite mausoleum is not only famous of its size, although the latter is remarkable too as it occupies a site of 650 feet and reaches the height of 123 feet. Mausoleum builders “equipped” it with the longest-lasting echo of any building in the world. The visitors of the impressive mausoleum can also witness the acoustic effect that is nicknamed “whispering walls”. If two people would stand on the opposite sides at both ends of the interior walls facing each other, they can easily conduct a whispered conversation. Another interesting detail of the family mausoleum was a giant glass oculus on the dome. In 1970 it was emoved and replaced by a perspex version with the help of a helicopter.
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.
