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.
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.
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.
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.
You won’t find a new yorker who does not know Grant’s Tomb. It is a family mausoleum that contains the remains of President Grant and his wife Julia. The mausoleum complex is located in Manhattan overlooking Hudson River.
As of today, Grant’s tomb is the largest mausoleum in North America. The whole complex was completed 12 years after Ulysses S. Grant’s death in the end of 19th century by the architect John Duncan. Not only the size of the tomb makes it special - this unique mausoleum was paid by huge public subscription.
The mausoleum builder John Duncan was inspired by the tomb of Mausolos at Halicarnassus and he tried to reflect the modern concept of it by building this beautiful granite and marble mausoleum. He also surrounded the structure by memorial statues of Civil War generals. Some say, that there are similarities between this resting place and Napoleon tomb in Paris.
Some hundred years passed by and Grant’s tomb became totally neglected and somewhat forgotten. In the end of the 20th century mausoleum was not only in a state of complete disrepair, it was also vandalized by spray-painted graffiti. It was not even considered important enough by city authorities in order to go through emergency repairs. The descendants of general Grant were even going to move his and his wife remains to a private mausoleum in Illinois.
Renewed public interest to the events of the Civil War changed this nasty situation. Restoration works were completed in 1997 and they cost almost two million dollars. The area around the tomb is monitored and the security increased. Military ceremonies are conducted in the mausoleum complex. Currently there are plans to create a visitor center and to expand the restoration works.
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.
