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.
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.
Those who think that mausoleums and tombs built as pyramids are located only in ancient Egypt and Nubia would be pleasantly surprised when they visit Rome. In 1660, quite by accident a mysterious pyramid was discovered there. It turned out to be a private mausoleum constructed as a small pyramid in 12 BC for an influential Roman magistrate Gaius Cestius. This mausoleum price was not cheap. Contemporaries witnessed an interior burial chamber decorated with frescoes. The tomb inside mausoleum was empty missing even human remains, which meant that it was robbed completely somewhere in the antiquity.
Naturally, as the years passed by, these frescoes were gone, and the pyramid survived only because it was built into Rome’s fortifications. This mausoleum is around 6 meters long and 5 meters high. It is one of the best preserved ancient building in Rome as of today. This type of tomb is different from its Egyptian neighbor by having no underground tunnels. It does not have exterior entrance either, so the tourists can not visit the interior of the mausoleum.
At the times when it was built the pyramid of Cestius probably looked very prominent. It stood in the countryside at the fork between two important roads, one of which led to the sea port of Ostia and another to the river of Tiber. The exterior of the tomb was made of bricks mixed with the slabs of white marble.
The city of imperial Rome was expanding so fast that in a couple of centuries the mausoleum was completely surrounded by buildings. The city needed more space, all bronze statues standing next to Cestius’s tomb vanished as well as other statues, monuments, memorials and old neighboring tombs.
We know now that pyramid of Cestius was not the only one in Rome. There was a bigger one close to Vatican which was destroyed in the 16the century. Obviously at the time of its constructions the imitation of Egyptian art, architecture and even rituals were in fashion.
In the 3d century the tomb was built into the city walls in order to save the costs and was used as some sort of triangular bastion. Most achievements of the antiquity and ancient world were forgotten during the Middle Ages. That is why medieval Romans did not know the origin of the mausoleum. When they realized that the bastion was in fact the partially marble mausoleum, they thought that it was the tomb of one of the founders of Rome - Remus.
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.
