There is a beautiful family mausoleum complex surrounded by statues and top monuments in Hangzhou, China. This beautiful memorial park has tombs of a father and a son who lived in the 12the century. The entombment is dedicated to the famous Chinese poet and general Yue Fei who serves as a model of loyalty and patriotism in Chinese culture.
Famous sculptors, craftsment and architects worked on this priceless mausoleum. However, it is not an actual burial site and the final resting place of a famous general and his son Yue Yun. It is a place where Chinese people come to pay their respect to their hero.
In fact, throughout the centuries a lot of legends and myths were added to Yue Fei. Some of the describe him as a man of supernatural strength who was blessed by immortals. But we do know that Yue Fei was from a humble background and concisously patterned his life after famous Chinese heroes of the past.
General Yue Fei was an avid reader of military classics a scholar and a true gentleman. He won many military campaigns for the Chinese Song Kingdom fighting against invaders for many years. New emperor Gaozong paid him back for all his bravery by treacherously murdering Yue Fei and his son on false charges.
Later general’s honor was restored and people gave him the name Loyal Hero. A famous quote from his poetry known to every Chinese person says “Return my rivers and mountains”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
