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.
In the late 19th century just outside the Italian city of Ravenna workers excavated stone building that was partially submerged in water. It turned out to be the burial mausoleum of Theodoric the Great, king of Ostrogoths. In the center of this personal mausoleum built in 520 there was a porphyry tub, where once the warriors put the body of the late king. However, later, when the city was under Byzantine ruling, the remains were thrown out and the former mausoleum tomb became a Christian chapel.
Theodoric the Great was so popular among Germanic tribes that he became a legend in English, German and Norse mythology. He was not only the king of Ostrogoths, but also the regent of Visigoths and the ruler of Italy. Epic poems of Middle Ages tell stories about the way he dealt with Odoacer - Germanic general who deposed the last emperor of Western Roman empire Romulus Augustulus in 476.
After Odoacer put an end to Western Roman empire, he proclaimed himself a King of Italy. He was an illiterate man and Arian Christian. Odoacer defeated Vandals in Sicily and added ancient Dalmatia to his kingdom. His actions angered Zeno, the Eastern Emperor, who persuaded his Ostrogothic vassals that Odoacer was their enemy. He sent Goths headed by Theodoric get rid of Odoacer once and for all.
Ostrogoths crossed the Alps and poured into Italy. Three times Theodoric defeated armies of Odoacer and at last besieged him in his capital of Ravenna. However, Ostrogoths tried in vain to capture the city for almost three years and in February 2, 493 Theodoric and Odoacer signed a treaty that ensured a shared rule over Italy. Happy Odoacer organized a lavish banquet to celebrate the treaty. During this celebration, Theodoric, after making a first toast murdered Odoacer in cold blood. He strangled the king of Italy with his bare hands.
Unlike his predecessor, Theodoric restored Roman law and judicial system for Roman citizens while Goths were obeying their custom laws and customs. His kingdom kept on expanding. However he was Arian Christian and that led to the deterioration of his ties with Eastern Roman empire. And after his death, Theodoric’s achievements began to unravel pretty fast.
His mausoleum is one of the greatest and priceless monuments in Ravenna. It has its own Gothic style and decoration which UNESCO considers it among the world heritage sites. This memorial mausoleum is also the only surviving burial tomb of a barbarian king of that period.
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.
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.
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 at Halicarnassus was a tomb that kept the remains of the ruler of small kingdom Caria in Asia Minor Mausolus and his wife and sister Artemisia. The structure finished after the death of a couple in the 4th century B.C. was of such a beauty that in the antique world it became known as one of the seven wonders of the world. And as a confirmation of this all private tombs currently are called mausoleums deriving their name from this aesthetic triumph of the ancient world.
Young Mausolus had an ambition to build a new beautiful capital and for that purpose chose the city of Halicarnassus, which is presently city of Bodrum in Turkey. He drained their treasury fulfilling ths dream of a young king. But it was his wife Artemisia that came up with the idea to build the magnificent tomb in the center of Halicarnassus to show the world how prosperous they were.
Unfortunately, Mausolus died young and his widow decided to proceed with the creation of his tomb. She hired the best and talented artists and hundreds of craftsmen of ancient Greece for the construction. We know that two greatest Greek architects Satyrus and Pythius worked on the design of the Mausoleum. And sculptural reliefs of the tomb were created by genius of Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas and Timotheus - most famous Greek sculptors of those times. One of the sculptors - Scopas supervised before the reconstruction of another of seven wonders of the world - Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
Artemisia passed away only two years after the death of her beloved Mausolus. And then an amazing thing happened. The construction of the Mausoleum had not stopped. Artists and craftsmen decided to work on the tomb and finish it for free because Mausoleum became more than a memorial to the rulers. They felt, that the tomb had to be completed as the memorial of sculptors art for posterity and new generations.
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.
